Coming To An End

Final Evaluation

When the idea of a self-initiated FMP was put across to me, I felt blank for ideas and slightly worried at the possible outcomes, as well as the nervous feeling of opting for an unsuitable project. After a lot of thought over several previous weeks, I settled with a few ideas that could be versatile, experimental and use a range of techniques that I wanted to develop more throughout the project.

I wanted to select a project that no one had really completed before, one that I could direct myself and make it my own. I chose my Disney inspired project for the final cut because if I wanted to put my own stamp on the project, it needed to be alternative, with plenty of room for idea creativity for each shoot. I knew from the beginning of my thought process that I wanted to create a blurb book due to the relation of the physical book with the fairy-tale story that parents would read to their children at night, however the alternative nature would be slightly unrecognised yet related to the original ‘uncensored’ versions of fairy tales. I also chose to experiment with nursery rhymes for a wider range of characters, especially as each rhyme has a purpose and/or an event in history to relate to which the shoot could be based on.

I think that this project went very well because there are many strong areas within ideas creation, research, planning, shooting and evaluating:

·         Variety of idea creation methods

·         Sufficient research of stories- current versions, re-made and original/censored versions

·         Documentation of artist research and inspirations

·         Excessive planning for each shoot- storyboards

·         Effective organisation of models and selection of location

·         Selection of the most suitable file type- RAW

·         Simple direction of shoots- model positions etc.

·         Detailed evaluations and advice of what to do/not do in the next shoot

·         Documentation of what’s working/not working

·         Annotation of contact sheets and selection of images

·         Effective post production comparisons

·         Meaningful experimentation with different equipment and techniques

·         Studio and location techniques

·         Film processes (both 35mm and 120mm)

·         Researching print/framing/book places and the preparation beforehand (re-sizing and book creation)

However, I think that there are also some areas of my project that I could improve on or do differently next time including the more effective use of my blog. I tried to treat this as a second sketchbook but found it difficult to keep up to date as the website itself was quite difficult to upload photos to and the format was also frustrating to work with. I also think that next time, I will need to keep a running bibliography as I go along rather than just at the end as this will be easier compiling each link and book name/ISBN at the time. Other than this, I think that my project was very successful and if I was to complete it again next time, I would just develop my ideas from here and include a few different characters/stories, possibly some further shoots to represent this.

I think that my final images work really well, both my print on the wall and those exhibited in my book because I feel that they are all critically composed and well thought out with regards to their framing and colour scheme. I’m really pleased with how my book is set out, especially as I think that I have more than one final image for several of the stories so I was able to include these extra images also. I think that my images represent my alternative photographic style and the post production was executed well for a set of appealing images that meet the brief and criteria. I feel that I have created a body of work to be proud of and am pleased that my experience and technique has developed during this project, as well as my confidence as a photographer with regards to approaching models and directing them throughout the shoot.

Exhibition Prints/Blurb Book

Coming to the end of the project, I then began to think about my presentation style and drew a ‘to scale’ diagram of my exhibition space (7ft x 4ft) and placed my singular 30 x 20 inch print with a ½ inch frame in the centre as 155cm from the base of the board being the mid-point. I decided to only have one image in my exhibition space because it was the strongest from the project (snow white photograph) and is very powerful on its own. I knew that my other images also worked well so I compiled them into a Blurb book with the text from each story/nursery rhyme. I found that the nursery rhymes already existed in the public domain along with the ‘Brother’s Grimm’ stories meaning that I wouldn’t infringe any copyright laws with the production of my book. I planned for a small table to sit below my frame in the exhibition as an alternative to a shelf, where my book would sit alongside a table lamp and a box for comments and business cards.

I ordered my print from the website ‘Professional Photo Prints’, a larger version of ‘Pro-Am’ due to the size of my print (30 x 20 inches- £20)and I framed it at a little shop in Hinckley called ‘Contactus’ with a ½ inch black frame which cost £32 at full bleed. Before ordering my book from Blurb, I created a mock-up out of paper to ensure that the images flowed well together and the text was aligned well. After this, I then downloaded the ‘Bookify’ programme and created my online book to upload to Blurb. The book cost me £22 with the 25% discount code that I was emailed due to already being a member of the site. I found the program very easy to use and was happy that I could select one or two of my final images from each shoot to include here and it would still look like a professional but alternative story-book.

Goldilocks Shoot

For my Goldilocks shoot, I wanted to portray her as a modern day thief as the story implies this. I wanted the image to be quite comical so I dressed the model as Goldilocks with a yellow shirt and added a balaclava and denim waistcoat. To capture the perfect image, I need to catch her in the act of stealing some porridge from the cupboard and/or chairs/bed covers.

I think that this went really well as the images turned out really well, especially with a dark tone due to the night-time lighting conditions that I decided to use. I like the idea of shadows and mystery within each photo as it ensures a huge contrast between the fairytale and the reality of the story.

"Baby Bear, however, had hardly any friends. This was partly because he was rather a bully and liked to win games and arguments. He was a pest too and always getting into mischief. Not far away, lived a fair haired little girl who had a similar nature to Baby Bear, only she was haughty and stuck-up as well, and though Baby Bear often asked her to come and play at his house, she always said no."

This part of the Grimm Brothers story explains that not only was Goldilocks a naughty thief but the Baby Bear was just as bad as her, possibly showing that they deserved the robbery after all as pay-back.

Cyanotypes

 To create my cyanotypes, I mixed up some cyanotype solution under artificial lighting (potassium ferricyanide and ammonium citrate and equal weightings of water). After the solution was combined, I then used a paint brush and other items such as a sponge to apply the solution to the cartridge paper. After ‘creative patterned’ coatings were applied, I then dried these and placed them inside a light-tight box for the time being.


I then set to work creating my digital negatives- using my digital photos; I de-saturated the colours to black and white with a high contrast and inverted them in Photoshop for a negative image. I then printed these onto acetate (by setting the printer to print on ‘transparency’.

 

When the printer ink on the negatives was dry, I took them outside with the boxed cyanotype paper along with a clear contact frame and a tray of water. I set out the contact frame indoors with the cyanotype paper underneath the negative and closed inside the frame. This was then exposed to the sunlight for about 5 minutes until the paper went from a green colour to ‘gun metal grey’. I then transferred the print over to the water tray and left it to develop until it turned a cyan blue colour and the image became clearer.

Luckily for me, it was quite a nice day outside so I just left my print to dry outside, weighted down by some stones which took only minutes.

At first, I wasn’t very optimistic about the prints as they took a long while to turn gun metal grey, however, I discovered that the exposure time was shortened if the cyanotype solution was pasted on the paper thicker in layers.

Overall, I was very pleased with my prints in the end, my favourite being the Snow White Studio print due to  the textures within the cyanotype solution and the way that it was dried. It reminds me of an old, vintage photograph, much like her style and outfit. Even the cyan colour relates to the character and emphasises the theme.

DIY Rollei

So.. I bought a DIY Rollei for £7.80 on EBay and pieced it together- which I must admit took a while, not to mention the poor instructions which were written in bad English.

"Screwdriver (do not enclosed)" means that there isn't one.

Some of the pieces were quite small to work with, especially the tiny screws but I continued to persevere, ignoring the fact that the diagrams were not very helpful. Even towards the end, it seemed pointless as the body itself was bowing enough to let light in... until it needed to be screwed through the centre.

In the end, the camera appeared to be fully functional and I was quite impressed with the idea itself as the lenses were quite accurate and the viewfinder screen appeared easy to focus.

All that's left to do now is to test it with 35mm film... Images will follow.
 

Digital Studio Shoot

My inspiration for the studio sheet is associated with portraits of various Disney princesses, framed in an oval, supporting various stereoypically 'elegant' poses. I decided to take this idea and use my 'alternative style' princess and nursery rhyme characters and mimic these poses for my own frames in the exhibition.

I prepared the studio with a simple lighting set up:
   -Two soft boxes either side of the subject for an even lighting      (white backdrop)
   -White umbrella with a black cover facing away from the subject in order for the light to reflect off it and back towards the subject (black backdrop).

After completing this shoot, I think that the simple soft box lighting set up worked the best out of the two due to the simplicity, yet I liked the black backdrop as it was very alternative.

When directing the model, I asked her to do different poses such as the one above that are stereotypically recognised in order to create that irony.

I think that the shoot went really well and I have definately captured some usable images, at least one for each character/princess.




Left to right (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Goldilocks, Little Miss Muffet).
 

 

Rollie in the Studio

As one of the shoots for my FMP, I decided to use the studio in order to capture some images of the 'alternative style princesses' to mimic those of the Disney princesses as they sit posing for the camera in their oval frames.

For this shoot, I used three types of media: my DSLR, my 35mm Minolta camera and a Rolleicord medium format camera.

To the left is the contact sheet that I printed in the darkroom of my 120, medium format film which unfortunately didn't turn out so well (only two frames were printable). This was due to a few reasons:
Although Rollie was easy to set up and load film etc, for the exposure to be set correctly, you need to use a light meter which just so happened to not be working correctly on the day... However, eventually I got a light reading, set up the shutter speed and aperture and framed and focused the image. The problem then occurred first with the cable release which wasn't firing properly so I scrapped that idea and decided to fire manually. However, as we were in a studio environment, I had set the lights to flash meaning that Rollie needed to be connected by a sync cable which obviously only worked for two shots because the other images on the film were underexposed and hardly visible. I also shot a 35mm film and printed the contact sheet (to the right) which had worked quite well, except for two overexposed images in the centre and a multiple exposure at the end as an accident. Originally I had thought that the film I was using had 36 exposures, however it only had 24 meaning that the film had finished by this point and I was just multiply exposing the last frame.

Despite these technical problems that I experienced, I think that I do have quite a few images that I could use and print, especially on the 35mm film. I really enjoyed using Rollie even if it was a frustrating challenge to get the lights to sync correctly and I am very impressed with the outcome (even if there are only two frames). The medium format style is much more detailed and these images show a lovely contrast which even helps to construct the personality of the character in the image.