Comission: Final Shoot/Printing

After one failed attampt at a shoot (all of my images coming out very soft), I waited for a nice sunny day and went out to reshoot. As my aim from the start was for my images to be taken for a newspaper, i decided to shoot on 35mm. Photographers for news papers would usually use slr cameras or smaller compacts because they are easier to travel around with and easier to shoot on. As this project had to be shot on film, i felt 35mm would be the ideal substitute.

The first location i shot was a recycling point at the civic center in Strood. I chose this location as it featured the castle and cathedral in the background, which are both monuments that symbolise medway. Whilst taking the image, i wanted to feature the recycling signs, as well as the castle, so i positioned myself so that the sign actually framed the castle in the background.

When it came to printing, i created a test strip for this image at f/16, and worked out the ideal exposure time was 20s at grade 2.

I then started to add in some grade 5 to darken the shadows and add more contrast. I ended up with this print. The exposure times for this were 20s at Grade 2, and 10s at Grade 5.

This print was far to dark along the bottom half of the image, so i dodged around that area. I dodged during the Grade 2 exposure for around 10 seconds, and then again through the grade 5 exposure for about 3-5 seconds.








This was my final exposure (the scanner i used to scan these images made some adjustments whilst scanning, so the image doesnt look the same on paper)

For my second and third final image, i visited a Household Waste tip in Cuxton, just off the M2.They were kind enough to let me walk around and take photos of them working and of the machinary there.

I chose to take a picture of one of the recycling bins at the tip, with people bringing their recycling in the background. I felt it was impotant to emphasize that this was still in medway, so i tried to include the medway council logo in the image.

I started off making a test strip at 5, 10, 15, and 20 seconds. From this, i worked out the exposure time i need was 20seconds.

 

 I made a full print at this exposure to see what work needed to be done on it, but i was happy with that print so i kept it as my final.

For my third final image, i wanted to photograph one of the workers. I asked the site manager if he'd mind posing for a photograph, which he was fine with, so i positioned him next to an information board and next to a bin full of brooms.

Again, i made another test strip at 5 second intivals, although this time something went wrong, and my test strip came out nearly white all the way through.

I assume i must have nocked the aperture up at some point by accident, so i turned it down to f/8 and made another test strip.

20*

20 seconds didnt seem enough, so i tried a strip at 25 seconds, which came out perfectly exposed. Next, i added 10 seconds of grade 5, and made a full print to see if i needed to make any further adjustments.

This was far too dark in the bottom right hand corner, so i dodged this area for around 15 seconds to brighten it up a bit, and came up with this as my final print.

Comission: Ronnie Isreal

Whilst researching for this project, i stumbled across the work of Ronnie Isreal, a london based photographer who has documented the development around the thames and docklands area. Looking through his site, i found a series of images under the heading recycling. These images can be viewed on these webpages:

http://www.ronnieisrael.com/html/environ7.htm
http://www.ronnieisrael.com/html/environ8.htm

I liked the simplicity of them. They appear to be of a more photojournalistic style than some of his other images. As my initial thoughts for the publication of my work are for a newspaper, i want to try and recreate this style.

Comission: Location Hunting

Today i went location hunting, with a few areas i already had in mind. One of the places i went to was a recycling point in strood next to the Medway Civic Center. Unfortunatly, my digital camera had run out of battries by the time i got there, so i didnt have a chance to take a photo of the area. The reason i wanted to go there was the view it had. Rochester castle and the river could be seen from this point, and i thought it would be important to feature this in some of my final images.

By the time i had charged up my batteries, i only had time to go to one other location, although this was the main one i wanted to visit. It was a household recycling place in Cuxton, just of the M2. I spoke to the people working there, and they were more than happy to let me take some photographs around the area for my project. These were the general shots of the area.

Fashion Constructed Image: Casting Final Choice

After the initial casting, we all agree'd upon someone who we thought would look best for our shoot. Our models name is Tom, and he studies at UCA. WHen looking through the casting photographs, his face really stood out to us as someone who could pull off the "business man" style that we were going for. I wollwed up this choice by doing another shoot with him wearing a shirt and tie/black trousers so we could get a better idea of how he would look.

For our shoot, we are planning on having our model wear a full suit as if he was working in an office. As we will be shooting in the spring/summer season, the primary colours for this time of year are lighter, so we are thinking rather than a black suit, we should use a grey or lighter suit.
These are some examples of suits that are available around this time of year We are not sure whether to go twith this more modern style, or to look at a more traditional cooperate styled suit.

Comission: Further Research

Today i talked with a man called Steve Baker, who is the head of Recycling and Waste Management for Medway Council. I spoke with him about my project, and he informed me that since the start of thie recycling programme, 47 "Bring Sites" have been installed around medway to help incourage people to recycle more and more, as well as places for household recycling. Looking through the website and at where these points are, i have a good idea of the ones i want to visit, and am going to go location hunting during this week. Also, i spoke about the possibility of me meeting with members of the council and works who deal with this project, and taking their pictures for my work. I now have his email address and intend to keep in contact with him about how my project is going to see if he can possibly find any use for this work within the council.

Fashion Constructed Image: Casting

So yesterday, i started doing some proper casting. As a group we had a few people in mind for the shoot, but we decided to branch out and ask alot more people before coming to a final desicion. Finding people who were willing to actually be involved with the shoot was hard, so in the end we only found 11 people who were up for it, most of whom we didnt think were right for the role.

Environment: Critical Appraisal Resubmission

My idea evolved throughout this entire project. I started looking at how much of the environment we use, wether it be land or resources. I looked at photographers who focused on the environment, such as Edward Burtynsky, and his work around the industrial parts of China. Since then with my reshoot, ive started looking not at just how much we use, but also how much we waste, and the disregard there is for the environment, especially in more industrial places. This idea took me to the island of Sheppy, which is full of factories and business that flood the air with gasses on a daily basis. I went around the smaller companies, and the lands around their factories to see the state in which they were kept, and was shocked to see how little they care about the immediate environment.

My final images were all taken in the small town of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppy. I shot on medium format, as i wanted to capture as much detail in the surroundings as i could. I would have liked to have shot on large format, but i had to be fairly quick as some of the places i went to werent open to the public. I tried to vary the content of my images, whilst keeping to the theme, and i felt that i have done that quite well. Having to resubmit this project really gave me the opportunity to look into the subject more, and take it alot more seriously.
I plan on contuining this study into the environment beyond this project, as it is a subject that intrigues me.

Some of the things i would like to have done better with this project, is to plan my time and shoots better. I struggled with orginizing shoots and getting out and taking pictures. I would also like to have travelled further afield, and documented a greater variety of this type of waste.

City: Pastiche of Lee Friedlander's "Albuquerque, New Mexico"

For my pastiche, i chose to try and immiate this image by Lee Friedlander. The image shows an almost abandoned cross section, with a dog that looks like it is waiting to cross.

The image was shot on a Leica 35mm camera. For my image, i attempted to try and get the same camera. Unfortunatly due to time constraints, the only camera i had available to me was a Bronica 6x6, so i had to crop my final image in the dark room. Trying to find a location that was similar to this was very difficult. I eventually setteled on a junction in Rochester for the shot.

As this was the only image i needed to take, i didnt make a contact sheet from the film (only 3 of the images came out, 2 of which were full of cars driving past. I tried to catch a break in the traffic, but it was hard as it was on a main road. i started off making a test strip for the image, working at 5 second intivals.

From this, i worked out that that i would need an exposure longer than 20 seconds, so i made another test strip at 20 seconds on Grade 3:

This seemed like a good starting point from which to start working with the grades and creating the high contrast found in Friedlanders image. My next step was to add some Grade 5 to the image to darken the shadows. I realised that in order to get this high contrast look, i would need to drop some of the mid tones in the image, and so made this exposure:

I had dropped alot of the midtones, but there still wasnt enough contrast. I decided to change the first exposure from grade 3 to grade 2 to see what effect it had on the image, and this was the result:

As i was running out of time in the darkroom, i decided to go all out on the image and make an exposure that was guarenteed to increase the contrast: I started by exposing the image at grade 2 for 13seconds, followed by another 22 seconds at grade 5, and this was my final result.

I was happy with this exposure. I realised whilst making this image, that to achieve the same exposure as Friedlander, i would have had to return at a different time of day when the sun was setting and the lighting would have cast more shadows.

Environment: Reshoot

After failing this project, and given the chance to resubmit, i was able to expand my idea of destruction and disregard of the environment. Ive looked at the damaging effect that industry has on the environment. For this, i decided to go to the Isle of Sheppy, which is full of factories and businesses, large and small.

For my shoot, i used a Bronica with a 6x4 back. I chose to use this instead of using the square format because i pefered being able to choose wether my image was portrait or landscape, without having to crop in the darkroom. I used 1 roll of Fujifilm PRO 400h around the small town of Queenborough.

Out of these images, i chose the 3 that i felt worked well together, and also showed this idea of wastefulness and disregard of the environment.






The first image i took was of some fencing around an olf train repair yard. The fence interested me, as in the middle of it was a small tree that had been built into the supports of the fencing. It seemed interesting that this fence was reliant on the tree as support, yet the company had no regard for the environment. Also, the aliminium sheets that made up the fence reminded me of a city skyline.

I started off making a test strip to find the correct exposure:

From this, i worked out that a good exposure time would be inbetween 5 and 10 seconds (closer to 10) so i did another test strip for 8 seconds, and came up with this exposure.

To reduce the amount of blue in the image, i reduced both the yellow and magenta. I meant to reduce them both by 10, but i accidentally reduced them both to 50. Luckily, this turned out to be exactly what i wanted, and came out with this for my final print:

My second final image was taken right opposite this fence. I wanted to look at the amount of rubbish and waste that was just lying around. There was a recycling bin in the yard that i was standing in, but it looked completly unused, whilst stuff was all over the floor.

I made another test strip for the exposure. As both this and the first image were taken under similar light conditions, i guessed that the exposure would be the same, but i made the test strip to make sure.

10 seconds again seemed to be around the right exposure time, maybe just a little to dark, so i made another strip, this time at 9 seconds. I had chosen not to reset the colours back to their default settings in hope that i would achieve a similarly correct exposure.

I liked the colours that came out in this strip. They werent perfect, being a little to yellow/green. But i liked this slight offset as it emphasised the idea that this was a rather dirty place. I therefore decided to make a print with these settings.

The third image was of a riverbed that ran past one of the factories. All dried up, it was full with rubbish and industrial waste, including scrap metal and bricks.

Again, i left the colour settings as they were, and as i was running short on time, i decided to just make a print straight away and see how it went. I decided that this time 10 seconds needed darkening down just a tiny bit more, so i set the exposure for 11, and this was the result.

I was really happy with the result, and out of the three images, this one was my favourite. The sense of decay and disregard in this image is emphasized by the colour, especially the grass.

Fashion Construsted Image: Chris Jordan

As our idea has expanded, and we have started looking at using objects as a main focus of the portrait, it seems necessary to look at the work of Chris Jordan. His project called "Running the Numbers" are a series of large pieces depicting shocking numbers in the US.


The 2 images above represent the amount of prisoners there were in Americn prisons in 2007. The whole piece is made up of 2.3million prison uniforms, which are stackec up and split into 5 large canvases. I really like this idea of scale. You cant relly tell what the image even is unless you get up close to it to examine it.

Another piece he has done depicts 2 million plastic bottles, which is the amount that are used in the US every 5 Minuites. Again its another piece done on an enormous scale, so it just looks like a sea until you get in close and see what its made of.

I like this idea of the sheer number of products that he is featuring in his work. It is similar to what we want to do for our project.

Environment: Location Hunting/Reshoot

With the re-shoot of my environment project, i decided to take a different approach with the project. Before i had focused on roads/construction sites and expansion. This time i've tried to broaden my focus by looking at the industry's effect on the environment right now, and the effect its having on the landscape.

The first place ive looked for locations on this project is the isle of Sheppy. A small island off the south east coast, the whole area is covered in factories and business, that generate alot of waste. I went to the town of Queenborough, which is home to Sheerness Recycling, a company that deals with the recycling of commercial waste. Unfortunatly, they wouldnt let me on site to take any pictures, but there is a sea wall right next to it which is acessable to the public so i scouted out the area from there.

Other locations i looked at around the island were a few companies such as Olympic Glass, and the waste they produce. Again this company wouldnt let me onto their site, but ive sent them emails asking for special permission so i am hopefull they will reply soon.

I did get to look around a site whilst there. It was a small company that dealt with the repair and maintance of the rail service on the island. Alot of the bigger companies use a network of railways to transport materials around. On the site, there was loads of old rails, and old trains lying around, under repair, or just not being used. I talked to the man who was working there at the time, and he told me that he maintains the engines of the trains used, and revives old trains so that they can be used again.