The theme for this
project was named 'The light Project'. Our brief explained that though out this
project we would be looking at different ways you can use light in photography
whether that's light painting or just dramatic lighting, also this project
would enable us to use digital cameras as wells film SLR's if we preferred. To
come up with ideas for this project I produced a mind map and took inspiration
from other photographers
For my final outcome I
produce a range of different darkroom prints of a model I had token using
dramatic lighting.
My range included solarisation,
reversals and a reversal of a solarisation as well as original un-tempered with
prints. I produced 4 large A4 prints of my final outcome and on the side did a
little photography book of all my little A6 prints.
As a whole I found the
whole experience temperamental I had a lot of problems with producing my final
piece and in actual fact although I did a lot of experimentation with portraits
and dramatic lighting, my actual intention wasn't to do this for my final piece
instead I was planning on doing some light panting with a film SLR camera some
would be in color whilst others black and white as I find the contrasty black
and white more interesting than the coloured version.
As time progressed I
started to experiment with this initial idea and produced some small black and
white light painting experiments with a model, in the style of Patrick Rochon
but they weren't successful enough to use as my final piece. I then tried to do
the same idea but with coloured film these were completely unsuccessful as only
one out of 30 was able to use and the one which came out wasn't at all usable
so with a week until the exam I began thinking of other ways I could produce a
final outcome and I began looking through my sketchbook.
This is when I saw how
successful and professional my dramatic lighting prints were and I started to
look back at my analysis of David bailey and began to really get inspired by
his use of dramatic lighting and his role play with he's models that links into
this, so I started to experiment with some more dramatic lighting portraits and
started experimenting in the darkroom with different techniques which is where I
produced some solarisation’s and reversal prints.
I really liked the way
David Bailey choose his lighting carefully depending on the pose and model he
chose for example the image of Jean Shrimpton is really flattering
he conveys style and sleekness with just using black and white film or an
effect The way he has captured the light bouncing of her hair and got that
jawline shadow is amazing he really motivated me that there is more to do with
a SLR camera and if done well it will look really good.
To improve my final
outcome I think I could of done some prints in where I put two pictures in the
negative carrier this would have been successful because I could of then played
with the opacity of the overlapping image on photo shop and it would of linked
into Roni Horn's Clown piece from the contextual studies unit as well as been
dramatic lighting so linked into David Bailey.
To conclude I found the
project stressful at times but however I am happy with the choices I made
regarding my final piece and I'm happy with my overall outcome. In the future I
would like to pick up a technique in which makes light painting on a SLR film
camera do-able.
