Thursday, December 10, 2015

Pinhole Camera/ Coffee Camera


To me, the strongest aspect of the work is the strong display of black, gray, and white. I believe that there is a balanced amount of the three, and create an interesting image. The only thing I would like to improve on are the faded edges. There is a little too much white, and i wish there could have been equal amounts on each side.

There wasn't much that was easy about this project. It was an annoying challenge that we somehow were able to finish. The last day Christina and i did this, it somehow all came together. The most challenging thing was trying to use the coffee camera. Not knowing whether a camera was completely sealed from the light was the most annoying part of the process. It was the cause of a lot of stress and lost time.

I believe i displayed the objective of displaying how light effects the photo paper by exposing the paper to the light for 30 second, and creating an actual negative image. I exposed the paper to light by  lifting the tape on the coffee camera, and exposing the hole. This let the light into the camera, and created an image. I don't know what i would do differently if i did this project again. I'm very happy with how it turned out. The only thing i can think of is that i wish my final image kept the really dark quality of the practice strip. The practice strip just has this cool vibe to it.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Photo Print/ Contact Sheet


My contact sheet (upper left picture)
My value scale test strip (below my test strip)
My practice strip (bottom right corner)
My official 5"x7"  image (top right)


The strongest aspect of my work, in my opinion, is the richness of grey in my 5"x7" picture. The varying values in the picture look nice and give the picture a nice feel to it. To achieve the level of darkness, I had to have the paper exposed to light for 21 seconds, using a 3 filter, and set the aperture to f11. I think the worst aspect of my work is the border. The border on top is too wide, while the bottom doesn't even have a border. Next time I'll have to better frame it in the easel.

I didn't find much of the assignment easy, but I might be confusing difficulty with annoyance. I guess the easiest part would be taking the actual pictures. This will sound probably be my answer to all my future projects, and I'm pretty sure i've already used this as my answer before, but it's the truth. The most difficult part of the process was having to keep redoing my picture just to find out what the right settings would be. I regret not using the enlarger I used originally, because that probably added an extra day or two of work. I now know that I should use the same enlarger for now on, so I guess it was a learning experience.

I displayed the objective of this project by using negatives to create a contact sheet. Then using the contact sheet to see what picture would be best for a 5"x7" image. I then used my negatives, by placing them in the enlarger, to create my print. Its kind of hard to say I would want to do this project over again, because I like the photo and it's sentimental value. If I had to redo it though, I would choose the photo of the mildew stuff that is at the looking docks. I think its a cool picture, that has a cool subject matter. To me personally, I find it more interesting than most of the other pictures I took.