My World
For this project, we were allowed free reign on what we wanted it to be about. However, one thing we had to remember throughout the whole thing is that is has to reflect the "world around me" theme. We were allowed to choose another personal theme to work on related to the world around me. There was a wide selection of other themes that I could have used, but as you can see from the mind map below, once I had decided on the theme of family early on, I was set.
As you can see, I talk about having some friends over and having a lovely time. I think that friends are quite important to me, so doing a photography project about that would be nice to do. I, of course, decided to do more film destruction. I have many ideas, many of which I will go into later.
Before I experimented with that however, I thought that I would look at some photographers that inspired me to do this certain film destruction in the first place.
The first photographer that I looked at was a fellow called William Dauel. I had first heard about him through a short film called 'Film Soup', by Michael Kudza on Vimeo. This short film follows William through his photography process, and even goes through his thoughts on film photography, but the bit at the beginning was where it showed him doing what he does when making a 'film soup'. It begins with William standing over a pot of boiling gasoline, holding some powdered bleach, which he puts in the pot as well. He also puts in some "off-brand" mouth wash, and some used coffee grounds. Once everything was mixed properly, he poured everything into a jar, and popped a roll of film in with the concoction. This scene here was quite inspiring to me, and I think that I would like to replicate something similar. I think it will be quite fun to mix and match different substances in a glass and see what happens.
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Some stills from the scene mentioned before
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To the left are some photographs by Dauel himself which inspired me. There are some lovely swirls of colour in some, and there are also dark spots on others, somewhat like the effect that I achieved when I grew the mould on the film in a previous project. I also enjoy how the effect of the film destruction doesn't take away from the original photograph, it just adds a layer of patterns. I particularly like how adventurous this photographer is, in both his photography, and in his method of film souping. In some photographs, you can see that he has photographed mountains, valleys, and seas, so that shows that he is passionate in his photography in that he is willing to go out and photograph these things. He is adventurous in his film soup methods too, because it just looks like he boils a bunch of random stuff in a pot, and sees what happens, which seems to always produce a wonderful effect every time.
I have talked about Phil Jackson before in my sketchbook, but I think that his photography has really inspired me here, more than ever. If you look at his photographs, you can see that they are perfect for the theme of ‘The World Around Me’, because that’s what he takes photographs of, the world around him. Phil has spent a lot of time on the road with his friends, and along the way he would take pictures of them all drugged up and drunken. He himself has never touched alcohol or drugs, but I suppose he thinks it’s amusing to see his friends under the influence.
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What makes Phil’s photography so wonderful in my opinion is that the characters that he captures in these photographs are so odd and weird, that it creates a sort of viewpoint into the moment as you try and figure out what the context of the photo is. I suppose that I subconsciously followed this artists work, because if I remember clearly, a lot of the photographs that I took with the disposable camera are similar in that I took pictures of my surroundings when I was with my family over Christmas, and with some of them, they are difficult to decipher as to what’s going on.
With Phil’s work, I get a feeling that he is photographing moments in his life as a sort of memoir to remember what happened. This is also reflected in what I have done, as it is the same in that I have taken these photographs to remember the fun times we had together.
Shoot Analysis & Post Production
The shoot was very fun, although it was quite challenging as well. You can't really tell, but I had invited some friends over for the evening, so we could have a nice time together. Secretly, I had an ulterior motive for having them over. I needed them so that I could photograph them for this cycle. The reason why the shoot was challenging however, was because I had never used the film camera that I had used before. This is evident through the fact that I accidentally pressed the rewind film button whilst I still had 10 photographs to take. Not that it mattered though, they probably would've looked the same anyway.
In order to get the effects that I wanted with the film, I followed a similar method as the artist I mentioned before, William Dauel. However, instead of a boiling pot of petrol, I used a cup of warm water. I added bleach, because bleach adds quite an interesting effect to the film. I also added mouthwash, as I thought that the alcohol would also add a cool effect. Coffee grounds were added next, because I thought that the caffeine might have added a cool effect too. I also added gin, but that would've done the same thing as the mouthwash. After it was all added, I mixed it all together and put the film canister in the cup. I left it for a good 5 minutes before I took it out, and put it in a cup of cold water in order to stop any reactions happening, and to also wash it. Then, I put it in the oven for 30 seconds on 50 degrees, just to get rid of any excess moisture. Finally, it was put in a bag of rice to dry it further. Then, I left it until my photography exam was over.
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Below are all of the photographs that I got back. If you scroll through them, you can see that you can't. There isn't much that is visible other than pretty colours and ethereal ghostly patterns. There were a couple of photos that you could see, but there wasn't really much to write home about. I know for a fact that the film soup that I made wasn't the cause of this, however. The reason why you can't see anything is because it is the same kind of film that was all messed up in the exam. This basically means that it was so horribly expired that all of the silver halides and the dyes were so badly degraded that you can't really make out much at all. So, this basically means that I have some "photographs" that are very degraded, with a layer of film souping effects over them.
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I think that it's pretty obvious that I need to do this again. I can't really use any of these. Don't get me wrong though, I do really like some of the images that came out of this, but I don't really want to use any of them, as they don't really reflect the cycle. I think that next time I need to be wise as to what canister of film that I use. I began this shoot before I knew that my Jessops Diamond Everyday film canisters were badly expired (since I found out in the exam), so there really wasn't any way that I could've known. Luckily, I still have loads of film canisters left, so I have a nice selection to pick from. On to round 2!
My World - Take 2
This time round, I have two reels of film. Unfortunately, I'm not to aware of the quality of either of them, but at least they aren't the badly expired Jessops film. I have one reel of 'Fujicolor SUPERIA' colour film, which I'm a little excited to use. The little tab that sticks out of the canister is a different colour than the usual dark brown, so I'm not sure what the photographs will look like. Also, I don't think I've ever used Fujifilm film before, so that's a little exciting. I also have a canister of 'Kodak Gold MAX', which I think is the same type of film as the one I used for the exam (the good pictures anyway). I've also had a few more ideas as to what I would like to do this project on, besides the original idea with my friends.
The first idea that I had would to be to explore the area around where I live, and take some lovely photographs. I've lived in the house I'm in at the moment for around 4 years, and the area that the house is in I've been in for over 7. It would be nice to walk around the area where I've lived for so long with a fresh pair of eyes and take some photographs.
The second idea that I had was to do the same thing as above, but instead walk around my school and take the photographs instead of my neighborhood. It's the same principle, I'd just like to take a look at the school I've been at for the past 7 years with a new perspective. It'll do me some good, I think.
I think I could always do both and see which idea works out better, since I do have two reels of film.
I'm going to scrap the whole 'friend' photography thing, by the way. Reason being is that I've already tried it once, so trying to do it all again would feel a little disingenuous, since I would have to invite them to my house just so I can get this photography project done.
Anyway, let's get started on the first idea, and see how it goes.
Neighborhood Idea
I think that it's pretty obvious that I need to do this again. I can't really use any of these. Don't get me wrong though, I do really like some of the images that came out of this, but I don't really want to use any of them, as they don't really reflect the cycle. I think that next time I need to be wise as to what canister of film that I use. I began this shoot before I knew that my Jessops Diamond Everyday film canisters were badly expired (since I found out in the exam), so there really wasn't any way that I could've known. Luckily, I still have loads of film canisters left, so I have a nice selection to pick from. On to round 2!
OK, so some things have changed. It's been a couple of weeks since I wrote that paragraph above, and I just wanted to let you know that I'm just going to stick with the Neighborhood idea, and scrap the school one. Reason being is that I've got the neighborhood photographs already, and I think there isn't need for any more photos.
The shoot itself was nice and easy, I just walked around the area with my Dad and Brother, and I used the 24 exposures in about a few hours. The film soup that I made was a little different this time round, because there wasn't any bleach in the kitchen. Instead of bleach, I ended up using some tool detergent. I still used the coffee grounds and the mouthwash this time, though. I must say, the results that I got from this are phenomenal. They are very similar to William Dauel's work, but they are still quite original. You can see them all in the gallery below.
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As you can see from the first image on the front of the gallery that not all of them worked out, but there are some in there that look just amazing. However, the only gripe I have with them is that they look a little grey, so I think I need to do some digital editing to change it.
To edit the pictures, I just heightened the contrast and saturation to varying degrees. This achieved a darker, more colourful photograph.
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Below is a gallery with the finished images. I think that I am quite happy with a few of them, but others have effects that look really similar to each other. I think some subtle further editing might be in order.
In Pixlr, there is a filter called 'Tony, which adds a slight blue hue, de-saturates the image a little, and adds a focal blur to the image. I think it adds a more ethereal feel to the image that wasn't there before, and it also accentuates the effects created by the chemicals a lot more than the raw saturation that I added did. The gallery is below.
Afterwards, I was struggling a little to decide on a single photograph to settle on for the final piece. I sought help with my photography teacher, and she suggested that instead of just having one photo for a final piece, I could have a couple of series. So, that's just what I did.
For the first series (above), I chose three photographs that I thought would fit well together. I chose these three because I think that the blobs of colour in all of them look quite similar. Also, from afar, these photos merge together, making them look like one long painting.
I went through a similar selection process for the second series of photos. In this one, all the photographs have an architectural theme, with the buildings in photo 1 and 2, and the fence in photo 3. Also, the colours in the photographs created by the film souping look fairly similar in all of them.
So, there are my final pieces. And, that concludes this cycle!