My Evaluation
During the 6 months of doing this project I have emphasised traditional techniques vs contemporary techniques. During my finale piece I created 4 photos with "destroyed film" when I scanned them in I created finger prints/ marks on my dark room and film and this is to show the limitations of traditional techniques but what you can do with the mistakes made if they happen "happy mistakes". I researched several artists during this project and Vivian Maier and Clyde Butcher mainly influenced me. Vivian did film work during her time with working with a camera and Clyde did Landscape photography in monochrome using a large format camera. These two artists are the main influence for my work they have both shown such a unique art to their work and I wanted to try to recreate it. I also researched other artists such as Robert Capa, Edward Weston, and Dorothea Lange. I learnt that using film completely changes the way you see a photo than if it was used in contemporary photography using a modern day camera. My first thoughts during this project was Contemporary could be as good as traditional photography however my idea has completely changed at the end of the project. With the pictures I have taken and the artists I have researched I now believe traditional photography is better although it comes with limitations you take much more pride in your work, the time it takes to develop and how you can't see the photo straight away makes it much better. The strengths of film camera far outweighs it is limitations since some of the limitations you can make "happy mistakes". I used different techniques within the project using traditional techniques and contemporary photography to recreate still life. I made pinhole pictures using the dark room and created calotypes within the dark room. Another traditional technique I used was film cameras. I created a film photo shoot, went around the streets, and photographed the buildings, people, and objects. I developed this within the dark room using a specific technique using a canister that had the film wrapped around and using special developer to develop the photos. I also used contemporary photography to create a still life shoot one being in a high key setup and the others being in a low key setup. I used a modern day camera to create these shoots instead of using a traditional camera. I found many things challenging during this project for example putting the film into the canister this was difficult due to it being In bitch black since you cannot use light at all not even the red light, this was difficult because I could not get the film into the canister since you had to feel around and try to find the specific slit it needed to go in. I also found it stressful to come up with a final piece idea I was not able to find a set amount of pictures to use to frame and use for my final piece. However, I was able to overcome this when I scanned in my film and decided to create a set of photos that show the limitations of using traditional photography but how you can create the mistakes to your advantage and make happy mistakes. What worked very well during this project was the high key still life shoot, The look of this shoot is very professional and some of the photos did not need photoshop because the position of the camera was perfect, the reflection at the bottom of the picture makes it stand out since you see a sharp clear image of the objects used and I also enjoy the reflective light inside of the lens of the film camera. This is one of the best shoots I had created and worked the best. My final outcomes of this project are 4 "destroyed film" pictures. They are meant to have finger prints, rough edges and markings over the scanned image. They are framed with a white frame around the images to pop the black from the picture. I also tried to create one with colour illuminating from the film which I was only able to create a bit of this in one of my images. I was hoping to create a piece that shows traditional photography is not outdated like many people say and although it has it's limitations it can be better than contemporary photography. In this project I believe that I have successfully explored my theme which is traditional vs contemporary I have shown both techniques