Evaluation

At the beginning of this project we were told the exam theme was covert and obscured. We then made a massive mindmap in a group to help us gather as many ideas for what theme inside this could be, photographers for inspiration, locations to take the photographs and synonyms of the exam theme to help get us started. Next we were given a number of different briefs to choose from, for example city life, family and life and collections/obsessions. I chose to go with the family and life brief as I enjoy photographing people and felt that I had a lot of ideas for it as it inspired me the most. For my first film shoot I came up with four ideas; objects in obscure places, stalking people, hidden identity and my cats point of view. I then experimented with a few of these in the darkroom using techniques such as sandwiched negatives, stencilling and layering with handmade negatives. From this I decided I wanted to develop the hidden identity theme for my final outcome, this reflects the exam theme well because the persons identity will be obscured.

The two photographers that inspired my work the most are Anton Corbijn and Mario Corea. Anton Corbijn's sandwiched negatives prints made for the Travis album cover inspired my own sandwiched negative prints as he used a close up picture and distant picture of each band member viewed from the front. Since the exam theme is covert and obscure and my own is hidden identity I decided to try the same idea but of the back of my subject so that their identity is not shown. Mario Corea inspired the second half of my outcome that is a collage. I liked the way he used photographs in the background and then painted around them/on top of them to make a powerful effect that makes the work stand out. I used a similar technique within my collage but not as heavy on the paint as him as I wanted each collage to represent the person.

Anton Corbjin:

Mario Corea:

The experiment that influenced me most was the sandwiching negatives technique as I found if really effective and I enjoyed producing them and finding different pictures that work well together. 

I really enjoyed this project as there were so many possibilities and ways the exam theme could be interpreted. I also enjoyed it as I got to try out a lot of techniques in the darkroom and I feel ive learnt a lot from it. I think the exam theme was fairly easy as it gave you a broad range of ideas and techniques to choose from. I'm pretty sure I will be happy with my final outcome as my experiments so far have been successful. 

Sandwiched negatives experiments

These are my best sandwiched negative prints so far:

I really like this print and will be taking it forward in the exam. To improve it I need to add a filter to add more contrast as the image is very grey at the moment. I could also crop the image slightly to cut out the doors on the side.

This print wasn't as successful as some parts are over exposed and others under exposed making it hard to find a solution. I will not be taking this forward for my exam. 

This print is a test strip but I found it worked a lot better than the actual print itself. To improve this I also need to add a filter to make the image more powerful.

I like this print but I feel it is lacking compared to the two previous prints that I want to take forward, because of this I will not be developing this idea anymore.

Mixed media collage development

This is one of my developed collage ideas for one of my subjects:

I chose three images to photocopy that work together well and then placed them on the page so that they overlap each other slightly. I added green acrylic paint around the edges of the photos and added some numbers I cut out from a newspaper. To improve this I could use the original prints as the paint effect will look a lot better and I will also use the subjects favourite colour to represent them.

Final film shoot

These are some of my best prints so far:

To improve them all I need to add a filter for more contrast.

Digital Photoshoot

These photographs were taken in Cornwall of my family using my Digital SLR Nikon D3100 camera:

Hidden Identity moodboard

Exam Review

The exam brief theme is 'Covert and Obscure' but my chosen starting point within that was 'Life'. I followed these two themes when taking my first roll of film and digital photo shoot. My four original ideas when taking the film were spying on someone from a far on there daily life, objects in obscure places, my cats point of view on daily life and hidden identity. I feel that the hidden identity theme has the most potential but this could also incorporate spying on someone on the daily life. This way both the exam theme and my chosen starter point theme will be met.

At the beginning of the project I looked at the four different ideas stated in the paragraph above, from this I decided on taking the hidden identity theme forward. I then began to experiemtn with different techniques that could portray this theme well, such as blocking out the subjects face, painting on the developer to obscure the image and sandwiched negatives that merges two photographs together. After doing some research on other peoples double exposures and sandwiched negatives I came across Anton Corbijn and I decided I would try taking a close up photograph and a distant photograph of someone from behind to merge together. As he has done a similar piece but with two photographs taken of people from the front.

My favourite and most successful experiment is the sandwiched negatives technique as it gives the image depth and captures your attention as there are two images to look at. 

I feel the least successful experiment was the handmade negatives as you are very limited with what you can do as there is only a small space to use and once you get something that looks good developing it further is not easy. For example using a handmade negative with another negative, it is hard to get the handmade negative to show up on the print unless something like salt is used, that doesn't let much light through, it doesn't work very well.

The experiments and techniques I would like to develop further are sandwiched negatives, collage, combination prints and painting on the developer. For my final prints I would like to use black and white film.

The artist that is currently inspiring me the most is Anton Corbijn and his sandwiched negative prints made for the Travis album cover. I have also looked at Sigmar Polke and Mario Corea's work which I really like and would possibly like to combine some of their techniques into my work. 

In the two weeks before the exam I want to play around in the darkroom with my favourite experiments to develop them and try and come up with some imaginative ideas for my final prints. I would also like to create some more collages using my new prints to help me decide what technique I want to take forward.