Saturday, April 20, 2013

Dolls

I fell in love with dolls the moment I first stepped into my Grandmothers attic full of old German Dolls. I love how eerie the dolls are but at the same time very beautiful.
So today I came across a book in the library full of dolls and weird masks. I had to get it out!
The book is by Ralph Eugene Meatyard called 'Dolls and Masks'.
It is full of fantasy and eeriness, two things that attract me the most. 
Here are a few images that are in the book...





Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Large format scans

So I finally scanned in my large format negatives from my second and third shoot. They are slightly underexposed so I have edited these in Photoshop...








Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Darkroom...

Well yesterday and today I have been printing my final images for the project. I have decided to print 20x16 on Fibre Based Paper.

Printing on fibre based paper is a much longer process than resin coated paper. The paper has to be developed for two minutes, stop bath for one minute, fixed for 10 minutes and washed for 30 minutes minimum. To dry the prints, you have to use a drum dryer which takes half an hour to warm up before you can use it.

The process is long and the paper is pricey but fibre based paper gives beautiful deep blacks and whites compared to resin coated paper. It also gives more of an 'artistic' feel to the image as if it is a piece of fine art. This is why I chose the fibre based paper for my final prints as I want my images to look delicate and like art pieces.

I also feel using the fibre based paper has improved my printing skills as I have spent many days trying to perfect my printing on the paper! I have alot more patience and knowledge within the darkroom now because of this!

Here are some of the prints I have produced in the darkroom over the past two days...


Sunday, April 14, 2013

Strong Island

So after blogging about the images of my late Grandmother and Grandfathers garden for my final project at University, it was spotted by Strong Islands, Paul Gonela.

I posted my blog to my twitter account, where Paul Gonela spotted it and he tweeted me asking if he could feature my work on Strong Island's website. Of course I said yes!

So, sometime next week my work will be featured on Strong Island's website! So excited!

Heres a link to their website -  http://www.strong-island.co.uk/


Friday, April 12, 2013

The Great Gatsby and April Vogue

So next month I will see my favourite book of all time, 'The Great Gatsby' by F.Scott Fitzgerald, on the big screen.
'The Great Gatsby' has been my favourite book since I studied it at college in English Literature. The book looks at America in the 1920's and how extravagantly the rich lived. Fitzgerald uses colour to describe Gatsby's loud and vibrant parties, especially using the colour yellow. Aswell as this, Fitzgerald also explores the loneliness of the rich, through the character Gatsby.
He also contrasts the poor to the rich using the colours grey to describe the life of the character Wilson, who works in a Garage.
My favourite character in the book has to be Gatsby. Gatsby is a mysterious character who throws his parties hoping that one day Daisy will turn up to one of them and remember who he is. Gatsby has alot of secrets and many that come to his beautiful parties do not even know him or have never seen what he looks like.
The book, has stayed with me since I first read it. I have read over it many of times after and the book gets more and more intriguing every time I read it.
Anyway, when I first heard that Baz Luhrmann (Director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet) had made 'The Great Gatsby' into a film, I was over the moon! The characters are played by the right actors, Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby will be amazing!






This leads me on to talk about Midnight in Paris. The other day I brought the April edition of Vogue and came across the article about 'Beautiful & Damned'. The article talks about Zelda Fitgerald, the wife of F.Scott Fitzgerald. It says she was "beautifully dressed, witty, extravagant and unafraid" and goes on to talk about the life of Zelda.
One part of the article caught my attention mainly because it had the word Paris in it and that always catches my attention. The paragraph explained how the film 'Midnight in Paris' had Zelda Fitzgerald and F.Scott Fitzgerald in it played by Alison Pill and Tom Hiddleston.
I turned to my brother and asked if he had the film which fortunately he did. So we watched it.
The film spoke about 'Golden Ages' and 'the past'. I found this related very well to my current project about my Grandmother and Grandfathers garden. The film was basically saying, in order to understand your future, you must look to the past but not get lost in it.

The film was beautiful not just because it was set in Paris but it was an interesting film, which kept going back in time to help the main character to write his novel. And I think I totally related to it as I always look back in order to help me creatively. I think Photographers should look at films more as well as looking at other photographers work as after I watched this film, I had alot of ideas in my mind! I recommend that you all watch this film and The Great Gatsby when it comes out!




Thursday, April 11, 2013

Mark Hilton Photography

So another thing I have done recently is help Mark Hilton out with his photography project. For Mark's final project, he built a 20x16 camera that uses direct positive paper to photograph onto.

Mark asked me to model for his last shoot and I jumped at the idea as I was so interested in watching the process and being part of it too.

The process is long but it is fascinating. He had to set up the camera, the lights and then put me into the correct pose in which I then had to hold for the 40 second exposure (staying as still as I could). Mark then went and developed the image in the darkroom and it is great seeing the end result after all of his hard work!

Here is the image he took of me...







It is a breath of fresh air to see a project that uses such a traditional way of Photographing. So much care, thought and time has been put into making the photograph perfect. It is also nice to spend more than a few seconds setting up a photograph!

Mark has also photographed four other models for his project which can be seen on his website and blog. Go and check out his work! Here are the links to them below...

http://www.markhiltonphotography.com/

http://blog.markhiltonphotography.com/