Black and White Film

Victor Burgin:

Victor Burgin was born in 1941 and was an English conceptual artist, writer and photographer. During his life he studied philosophy and drew from philosophical theories in his work. The three photos I have chosen were all taken by Burgin in 1991. Burgin's work is known for manipulating photos which suggests there is a space between the reality of something and of a person's mind-set.

This is two photos of a car exploding and then what appears to be someone's mind exploding, I think these photos have been manipulated into one as the photographer was trying to communicate that our minds sometimes loose control, the same way in which someone in a car crash has lost control of their car.

These photos are manipulated into one which may suggest that there is no time to rest as the separate photos are of a clock and someone sitting down, this could be a symbol for the fact that no matter how much people try to rest and calm their minds, they are unable to because they are constantly aware of the time and other commitments they have.

Eadweard Muybridge:      

Eadweard Muybridge was born in 1830 and acquired an interest in photography in 1855.  In 1872, Muybridge began experimenting with an array of 12 cameras photographing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. His initial efforts seemed to prove that Stanford was right, but he didn’t have the process perfected. After proving that horses do have all feet off the floor during their running stride, he produced thousands of images of humans and animals in motion. He also published several books featuring his motion photography and tour of Europe and North America. He died in 1904.                                      

This photo is of an ostrich from different angles, the photographer has used different exposures to create a different images of the ostrich. They may have done this to show how we don't always understand something at and therefore we should look beyond what we first see and understand something before we make a judgement. 

 This strip of photos is a man taking his hat off, these photos have been slightly overexposed which make them look slightly eerie, the photographer could be trying to imply that the man may have an unknown secret and the hat could be a symbolism of letting people in to this secret, as he takes the hat off, he allows people to see who he truly is. 

Lois Greenfield: 

Lois Greenfield was born in April 1949. She majored in Anthropology at Brandeis University however her career path changed in the 1970's when she was assigned by her to shoot a dress rehearsal for a dance concert by the local Boston newspaper she worked for. She has then continued to in photographing dancers in the studio as part of her exploration of the expressive potential of movement.

 This photo is of three dancers, the use of black and white is effective as it brings out the details and shadows in which you would not be able to see in colour, this allows the photographer to portray the dancers in a different light, more powerful then they would usually be viewed.

This is a photo of a girl dancing however the shutter speed was used on a very slow time to create a ghost like image of the girl jumping/spinning. The use of black and white allows the dancer to be the focus of the photo even compared to the second photo of her, this is also due to the fact that the aperture was high meaning that the background of the image is blurry. 

My attempt:

These are 3 of the photos which I developed from my film. I used different exposures and apertures to create different effects to the image. Once I had developed my film, I made a contact sheet and a test strip which allowed me to find how long I needed to leave the photographic paper in the light to gain the right exposure for my print.

This is my test strip which I used to decide how much time I needed to expose the print for. The darker side of the image was exposed for 30 seconds whereas the lightest side was only exposed for 5 seconds. This process taught me that this print needed around 25-30 second to fully expose and create a clear, sharp image. 

This photo of a flower worked quite well however I would have preferred it to have bit lighter which I could have done by exposing it to the light for a few seconds less, this would allow the photo to be more of a sharp image.

I like this photo as the flower is the main focus and has been exposed correctly. This photo also follows the rule of thirds as the flower is just off centre and therefore draws your eyes towards it. To improve this photo I would have exposed the right side for a few seconds longer than the left as it is quite bright due to the sunlight.