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Photo

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:51:38 -0400

Two of today’s cyanotypes drying down.

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:48:10 -0400

Two of today’s cyanotypes drying down.

Long exposures. You ain’t down.

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:39:00 -0400

Long exposures. You ain’t down.

The first of my 15 final images. I have about 40 failed prints...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:36:01 -0400

The first of my 15 final images. I have about 40 failed prints so far, but I think this one is good enough to submit.

Today I conducted a series of scientific tests to predetermine the best Cyanotype process for me. I...

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:57:00 -0400

Today I conducted a series of scientific tests to predetermine the best Cyanotype process for me. I printed on Arches Aquarelle paper, widely considered to be the best for the practice aside from handmade Buxton paper from Ruscombe Mill in France (Some of which I have ordered and hope to practice on soon). I set up a makeshift darkroom by blacking out windows with bin bags and using a tungsten lamp for light.

I identified four variables for my tests:

Firstly treating the paper with citric acid reportedly neutralises alkaline buffers within the paper and.

Secondly, adding Foto-Flo, a non-ionic surfactant that helps the fibres of the paper absorb the sensitiser.

Third, many Cyanotypists advocate using a coloured negative, believing that the coloured ink lets less UV light through, and that printers produce better gradients in coloured ink than black.

Finally, the online Cyanotype community generally advocate using a predetermined photoshop curve tho optimise the effectiveness of digital negatives.

I began by printing with Cyanotype sensitiser on the paper with no additives. To do this I used a foam brush, which coats the paper evenly and is more controllable than a glass rod.

I chose a section (Around 4x5”) from one of my images that had the intricate detail and contrast that I think will be common across my 15 final images, making it a good example to practice on.

The left image shows sensitiser on paper with a digital negative that was simply my photograph inverted then flipped horizontally. The right hand image shows a negative with my curve applied. The difference between the two is that the first preserves detail in the lighter areas, whereas the second has less detail in the light areas, but more in the darker areas.

This image is the same, using a coloured negative instead of a black and white one. The right hand image (With a curve applied) turned out badly but based on these results I decided to disregard coloured negatives and stay with greyscale ones.

Here the paper was treated with citric acid solution prior to the sensitiser being applied. The citric acid seems to have given the eventual blues a washed out appearance and blurs fine detail.

Here, the paper has not been treated with acid, but one drop of Foto-Flo has been added per 1cc of sensitiser. Foto-Flo does noticeably increase absorption, but the aesthetic it gives is not as pleasing as my first attempts. The detail is still not good enough in the man on the bench.

Finally, adding Foto-Flo to the sensitiser after the paper has been acidified seems to counteract the washed out look that the acid gives somewhat. Despite this, the image is not how I want it.

It seems that the best idea, despite advice that I have been given and read, would be to not add Foto-Flo and not acidify the paper. In terms of the photoshop curve, I think a combination of the first two would be best, with the curve applied to the darker areas, and the lighter areas left as they are. This would give the best detail and contrast within my means. This will require some intricate photoshop editing.

Hell’s Kitchen, NY.

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:36:00 -0400

Hell’s Kitchen, NY.

My first attempts at cyanotype with new paper: Canson Monteval....

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:57:00 -0400

My first attempts at cyanotype with new paper: Canson Monteval. It is apparently well suited to cyanotype, however the dirty marks which have been appearing on it after coating seem to suggest otherwise. All three images are 6” by 4”.

The first was done in the sunlight, with a 10% citric acid solution added to the paper in an attempt to make the paper acidic and therefore more susceptible to the cyanotype solution. There is a difference in contrast to the second one, which had no acid, however the edges of some parts are more blurred, such as the bike seat. No non-ionic surfactants (to aid absorption) were used.

The second is just cyanotype developed in sunlight, no additives such as citric or nitric acid and no non-ionic surfactants. There is less contrast, and the blues aren’t as deep as I want them to be, but it is overall sharper than the first.

The third is cyanotype with no additives, developed with a UV bulb. The blues are much deeper, at the expense of detail. The development of the image is also incredibly uneven.

As an introduction to the upcoming posts and the final leg of my...

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:15:00 -0400

As an introduction to the upcoming posts and the final leg of my dissertation project, this is a small video that I edited together with the limited material that I filmed while I was in New York last week. The music is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, from the Social Network soundtrack. No copyright infringement is intended.

While in New York, I managed to take the photographs that I need to complete my project. The next step is to select 15 from around 1500 images currently on my hard drive and then to print them using the ‘alternative’ printing methods that I have chosen.

The upcoming posts will detail the images that I have taken, the theory behind them, and the science of alternative printing.

Fourth attempt at cyanotype, the first one that even sort of...

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:57:00 -0500

Fourth attempt at cyanotype, the first one that even sort of worked.

For my next attempt I plan to use a more exposed negative to try to produce a darker image with a bigger tonal range. And then if the image is still washed out, introduce a hydrogen peroxide bath.

My first digital negative, a practice for my dissertation work...

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:34:00 -0500

My first digital negative, a practice for my dissertation work which will eventually be displayed in cyanotype. Waiting on the paper to dry in a dark room before I expose it. Hopefully it will turn out well. The photo is of my brother, not the subject matter that my dissertation is going to be based on, but it was convenient to just snap an image this evening for a test print.

If I have to guess, I don’t think I ‘exposed’ the negative enough. There doesn’t seem to be enough contrast.

I’ll guess I’ll find out in an hour or so.

A lot of the discussion in lectures at University recently has...

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:53:00 -0500

A lot of the discussion in lectures at University recently has focused on photography’s place in society at the moment:

• Are there some things that shouldn’t be photographed?

• Can things like photo-activism and documentary ever be wholly in the interest of the subject, or does the photographer always have an agenda?

• Illustrated by Daniel Morel’s recent court case, does the photographer even have a right to their own photographs when they are produced in the context of something like the Haiti disaster? Newscorp used Morel’s famous images without permission and neglected to pay royalties, stating that it was in the public interest to show them. Morel was perhaps in the wrong because, in the middle of a disaster, he decided to photograph rather than do the ‘human’ thing and help out.

• Does photography belong to photographers? With consumer technology only a couple of years behind professional technology at any time, phone cameras being extremely accessible, and apps like Hipstamatic, news outlets are turning to amateur photography more and more in order to find images. This is easier, albeit arguably less ethical, for the corporations as the average ‘man on the street’ with his iphone is perhaps less business minded than a professional photographer, meaning that they can skirt around the beurocracy and formalities of hiring someone to take photographs for them.

• At the same time, the ease of access of ‘point and shoot’ cameras, as well as the fact that self publishing on social network and blogging sites is so simple, means that the internet is full of arbitrary holiday and ‘on the go’ snaps. Is this photography any less meaningful than professional photography?

In relation to this last point, most tourist photographs of monuments are taken from the same spot - ironically, these are the spots that provide the ‘iconic’ views of the monuments. In essence, tourists tend to use their cameras in order to recreate photographs that they have seen before, and think that they should be taking. Each image, while still maintaining an almost identical composition, is never exactly the same.

“The photograph proves our presence. And to be true, the picture will be perfectly consistent with the pictures in our collective memory”

Corrine Vionnet recalls Sontag in her statement and, while the Swiss artist understands the trend for reproducing images that have been reproduced before, she also understands that to create identical images is near impossible. Searching through through image sharing sites such as flickr Vionnet has found two to three hundred photographs each of landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower (above), Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow and Tiananmen Square, China - with each image having its own idiosyncracies. She has then layered them on top of each other to create a unique effect, reminiscent of an oil painting.

In a world becoming over-saturated with amateur snapshots, it seems that Vionnet has given the individual photographs from this phenomenon a practical and meaningful role to play within the theoretical framework of photography, if only for a short time.

100 Abandoned Houses is a project by Kevin Bauman that documents...

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:13:00 -0500

100 Abandoned Houses is a project by Kevin Bauman that documents 100 of an estimated 12,000 abandoned houses in Detroit, Michigan.

Due to the dramatic decline of the city, the population of Detroit has fallen from over two million to around 800,000 in the last 20 years, with most of these leaving within a gap of just a few years. This inevitably led to so many properties being abandoned.

The decline was present all over the city; Some of the most beautiful architecture in America now lies in ruins, and can be seen in photographs such as the ones by Yves Marchand and Romaine Meffre. The city has been accused by some of defiantly rejecting education and the arts, in favour of the automotive industry that it is famed for, an automotive industry that has since been outsourced, leaving yet more empty spaces.

However, ironically the incredibly low living cost and the largely un-policed abandoned buildings have actually attracted the artistic types that now thrive in the city. Its culture and industry is slowly rebuilding itself in a new image as artists and musicians move in to empty warehouses and convert them in to studios. The city’s crumbling architecture and legacy serves as inspiration for artists such as Bauman.

Bauman’s photo set focuses specifically on the houses that he has selected, and will be used as reference for my second photography project this year at University in which I hope to do something similar, with my own individual twist.

Dissertation Research - August Sander. August Sander was the...

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:44:00 -0500

Pastrycook, 1928

The architect Professor Dr P Berlin 1929

Youth movement, 1923

Persecuted man, c. 1938

Travelling showman, 1929

Inmate of an asylum, 1930

Unemployed man, 1928

Labourer, 1928

Political prisoner, c. 1937-1939

Shyster lawyer, c. 1945

Dissertation Research - August Sander.

August Sander was the ideal starting point for my dissertation research, being one of my favourite photographers and specialising in portraiture.

Sander was most active, and produced what I consider to be his best work, during the Weimar Republic. He travelled the country during the 1920s and early 1930s with the aim of producing a set of images which illustrated the people of Germany at the time, this series was entitled People of the 20th Century.

What interests me about Sanders work is that it has multiple facets. Aside from showing the talents of an incredibly accomplished and prolific photographer (It is rumoured that by 1945, Sander had amassed 40,000 images), the photographs almost unconsciously illustrate the aesthetics of what it is to be a photographer.

Sander used the camera to observe people rather than to pass comment on them. In the book August Sander: ‘In Photography there are no Unexplained Shadows!’, a companion book to the exhibition of the same name shown at the National Portrait Gallery, London, a quote from him refers to the section of his work that shows musicians:

“I wish only to capture for posterity the outward appearance of the personalities of the masters of our time. That is my task. This portfolio is devoted to the titans of music, and musical literature will supply all music-lovers with information about them.”

Sander freely admits here that he was a wholly aesthetic photographer. The camera, for him was nothing more than a tool to capture what he saw in front of him and if the audience required information about the subjects, then that information was readily available elsewhere. In a profession which constantly calls for artistic and theoretical justification of a practitioners work this attitude, to me, is an incredibly brave and refreshing one to take.

Sander was not collecting images of the people of the Weimar Republic as a social experiment and was not attempting to pass comment on society; Instead, he was simply cataloguing. His work is closer to a map of Weimar Germany, only instead of showing roads and buildings, it shows people. One of the striking elements of August Sander’s body of work is that includes members of the Nazi Youth alongside pastry chefs, famous composers alongside the mentally ill, and political prisoners alongside army officers - yet it never views any of the images with a judgemental eye; They are all members of the same catalogue.

Sander was sanctioned by the Nazis when they eventually achieved power; copies of his book Face of Our Time were seized in 1936 and destroyed along with the negatives. When WWII broke out, he moved to the countryside which allowed him to save most of his negatives. Sander spent the rest of his life specialising in landscape, never really returning to the portraits for which he is famous.

Above are some of my favourite photos of his.

Some more photos from the Breaking Boundaries Seminar, part of...

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:00:08 -0500

Some more photos from the Breaking Boundaries Seminar, part of Leeds International Film Festival.

Tsai Ming Liang. Once voted the 18th greatest film director in...

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:17:00 -0500

Tsai Ming Liang.

Once voted the 18th greatest film director in the world. Taken during an interview that me and a friend filmed with him during the Leeds International Film Festival.

Coffee break time at the Breaking Boundaries Seminar, part of...

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:16:00 -0500

Coffee break time at the Breaking Boundaries Seminar, part of Leeds International Film Festival.

The National Gallery, London. I had the opportunity to visit...

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 17:52:00 -0400

The National Gallery, London.

I had the opportunity to visit London for the first time this week. This is the only decent photo I got in the couple of hours of free time I had there.

In the absence of anything new or groundbreaking I’m posting a...

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:43:00 -0400

In the absence of anything new or groundbreaking I’m posting a heavily edited photo from a set I took a few weeks ago that I couldn’t find anything good in. Definitely need to get out more to take photographs and definitely need to pluck up the courage to actually take my camera out of my bag in public.

Spider.

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:12:00 -0400

Spider.

Poultry.

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:13:00 -0400

Poultry.