Figure 1: Phil Hill (June, 2020) unedited portrait of Oliver, which was buckled when loaded for processing – shown by the crescent highlight bottom right of the image.
I am having to really consider the medium I have begun to use for this module. I have identified that I am in need of re-learning the process of shooting and using the medium format full time. For example, since starting to shoot film again, I have encountered a number of technical challenges to overcome whilst processing and scanning at home (in part a challenge related to the current covid-19 lock down). I have buckled film loading (Fig: 1), underdeveloped once, and had an issue with light leaking film backs. Some of this could be attributed to the current pandemic, however I approached the medium with an assumed confidence that I had once used these materials so would be able to run with it again. Therefore, I have decided to go back to some of the basics to better understand this new apparatus that I have started to use to the point of properly keeping film temperatures and specific agitation for the film I am processing.
105mm @ f5.6105mm @ f16
105mm @ f8105mm @ f22
105 @ f11
Figure 2: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Depth of Field test using 105mm lens ranging from f5.6 – f22
One of the main challenges I have had, is some of the images that I have made are soft focus, which is something that I would normally check on location however instead I am making one or two frames of the subject. Depth of field is a very early lesson in learning the technique of photography and something that I aim to utilise in my own portraiture. A sharp subject and shallow depth of field creates effective framing to encourage the viewer of the image to remain looking at the subject, which I have placed value. This is one of the most effective tools to construct a dominant reading of the work subjectively by the photographer. It is also aesthetically pleasing in the way that it abstracts the way that we process information of the world. Soft or missed focus negates an effective execution of the idea contained in the image, so I felt it fundamental to the execution of the project to re-learn the specifics of the 6×7 apparatus. I have been aiming for a shallow DOF of around f4, however owing to the larger size of the format over my full-frame DSLR, there is a difference in how the DOF translates into the image, which I did not consider myself. Ultimately, there is around a 4 times difference in sizes, which means that a 50mm standard lens size on full frame equals 105mm to cover increased format size. Without trying to get to far into the technicalities of it, what I have not been factoring in is that the 105mm lens will still give the same DOF results regardless of the size of the film, or emulsion; the f4 I have been aiming for is more like f1.0 meaning a significantly smaller amount of headroom to get the shot, especially as a glasses wearer using a camera without dioptre adjustment or autofocus.
These might be considered to be rudimentary and frustrating lessons to have to re-learn, especially studying at a MA level, however it is also really pushing me to consider my craft. As I have come to research the impact that apparatus and the subjective qualities of the materials and medium it is important to understand them as part of the process of creating an effective project. A well-researched and conceptually strong idea also needs to be well-executed which means a deeper understanding of those materials – apparatus is a key part of that execution. It will also be a good idea to better understand the materials of the chosen film emulsion, which will be an important consideration as although subtle, have a fundamental impact on my project.
‘I hope this finds you safe and well’ (working title – based on many of the emails and communication that I have been making during the last few months).
Keywords: Idiorrythm, connection, Identity, community
Methods/methodology you will be exploring;
I am currently exploring new apparatus and the associated processes. Moving outside of my digital comfort zone and onto medium format black and white film, which is in part based on research into a documentary aesthetic and how photographers such as Vanessa Winship, Eli Durst, and Alec Soth have utilised to heighten the idea of nostalgia (linked to the way we view community), and how Winship considers it a way to highlighting the way that the world is in colour. Black and white also considers the photograph as an object as a way to make the reader aware that this is a photograph and how Vilem Flusser suggests that the black and white image can be used as a way of logical analysis of the subject, hence its use as a documentary tool (2000, p. 42). I also aim to explore the qualities that are inherent in film that will bring additional meaning and reading of my project.
Part of my research into the use of Black and White was informed by FSA images of the 1930s referenced by Susan Sontag (1979, p. 6), John Tagg (1988, p. 12), and Sally Stein who considered ‘Migrant Mother’ “as the quintessential 1930s documentary photography” (2020, p. 59). This research, initially brought me to consider the use of black and white seems to have taken on new significance with Boris Johnson announcing yesterday ‘A New Deal’ (Partington, 2020) which was a clear reference to the one of Roosevelt that led to the creation of the FSA photography project and still plays on the mythology of the time and imagery of our learned knowledge.
My aim is to explore the idea of connection through engaging with people in my local community and see if there is a common identity contained within the landscape, the people and the spaces. My project has evolved during the last few months as I start to really identify what it is about this place and people that draws me to photograph them.
Number of shoots you will need;
One of the parameters I have placed onto my project is via the apparatus and its 6×7 format, which means that I can shoot 10 frames per roll of film. This approach need to be considered and planned as I do not have my digital camera to fall back on.
I am also dependent on the weather to conduct shoots, but anticipate that I will conduct roughly 2 shoots per week in order to have a good range of images to edit.
Possible outcomes and where to show them;
My aim is to produce a consistent body of work that might contribute to my broader project goals. Initially, I intend to show the work online as part of the Landings exhibition supported by a publication to create a tangible outcome alongside the digital one.
I will also create a workshop, which can be conducted online and related to engagement within the community. This would potentially with my peer group.
The results you are looking for/expecting;
I hope my new direction in image making will give me a better understanding of why I am making the images that I have been producing for my project.
The relationship between this work/project and overall research for the MA;
My work is a continuation of the idea of connection and identity within my community. Primarily, my intention is to establish an aesthetic style that will be refined and developed to work out the possibilities before moving into the next
Landings exhibition: you need to start thinking about the exhibition and considering how you can work collaboratively. Discuss your strengths with your peers, and what you can offer with regards to organising Landings.
Related to the above, my intention is to exhibit my work online and will explore different possibilities for this.
I would be happy to collaborate and support the Landings exhibition as much as I can. As I have childcare commitments this may not include being a part of the team curating, however, I have experience in using software, such as InDesign and Illustrator, should that be useful.
Additionally, as a lecturer, I would be more than happy to support anyone who wishes to create workshops and help with structure, for example.
Bibliography
Flusser, V., 2000. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. 2018 Reprint ed. London: Reaktion Books.
Partington, R., 2020. How does Boris Johnson’s ‘new deal’ compare with Franklin D Roosevelt’s?. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/30/how-does-boris-johnsons-new-deal-compare-with-franklin-d-roosevelts [Accessed 1 July 2020].
Sontag, S., 1979. On Photography. London: Penguin.
I have become interested in a number of concepts that I am aiming to explore throughout this module. This has in part been inspired by some of the ‘documentary aesthetic’ research that I have been conducting, which had led me to explore the use of black and white film during this module.
Figure 1: Justine Quinell (2010) Solargraph of Clifton in Bristol showing the rise and fall of the sun.
Solargraph
Figure 2: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Pinhole camera from a beer can making process.
I actually have been using a similar set-up during this lock-down period to expose a series of ‘solargraphs’ around my home using pin-hole cameras made from beer cans (Fig: 2), which then have photographic paper placed inside to expose over a long period of time. This was inspired by artist Justin Quinnell who creates these that have exposure times of 6 months or more (Fig: 1). My idea was to record the period of time inside the home (Fig: 3).
Figure 3: Phil Hill (March – June, 2020) Solargraph of bedroom exposed during lock down.
The image is built up over time so that you can start to see how the light changes and the rise and fall of the sun tracing over the sky, for example. As a way of showing time, these are really interesting. The photo paper cannot be fixed in the usual way or the image would be ruined, so the paper would continue to expose and eventually turn black, which could be used as a metaphor for the present time, or creating a sense that the photograph itself has a life that begins and ends. At the end of its life, only the digital scan would remain. My primary interest is in portrait photographs, however there are links to be made between this process and how Roland Barthes’ discusses the image: “As if the (terrified) photographer must exert himself to the utmost to keep the photograph from becoming death. But I – already an object, I do not struggle” (Barthes & Wells, 2002, p. 23). In the solargraph , it becomes an object the personifies this decay and is unable to be embalmed as Barthes’ states.
Figure 4: Phil Hill (March – June) Solargrams exposed during lock down [Click to Enlarge]
Pinhole.
Figure 5: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Window image shot on 35mm film
For the week 4 ‘Hands off’ task, I decided to create a pinhole camera to shoot film, which is something I had never done before. I modified a new beer can pinhole, which needed to be lined in order to make it usable for film and to reduce reflection inside the can. Working out the exposure time was quite a challenge but an important one as I only had a few strips of film to play with. The idea of separation and abstraction has been a feature of some of the work that I am producing, which included the barrier created by my windows. I have come back to this at the start of this module by re-photographing them onto film (Fig: 5), so decided to see how I could abstract the view using a different method.
The fstop for my pinhole camera is around 250, which creates a much longer exposure time. In low light it would have meant factoring in reciprocity failure. However, during the day if metering f22 at 1/30th second, my pinhole would need to expose for 8 seconds. The resulting images show the view through my windows, something that I had not done with my other window images, yet they are still abstracted because of the time it took to expose leading to some inevitable movement (Fig: 6).
Figure 6: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Windows taken with beer can pinhole camera [Click to enlarge].
Could I use this in my research project?
I think that the technique used is not something that I would take into my research project but the idea of abstraction, which creates a separation in the image is an interesting concept to take forward. I feel that even if the image is strictly lens based, indexical and also iconic, it can still be abstracted. Abstracted in the sense that all images are untruths, All images are unable to be true representations. This could then be introduced to my research project subtly as even a digital scan of my photographs is an abstraction of the negative, which is an abstraction of the reality it recorded.
Bibliography
Barthes, R. & Wells, L., 2002. The Photography Reader: Extracts from Camera Lucida. 4 ed. London: Routledge.
Figure 1: Richard Mosse (2012) Image from Infra, which utilised an infrared film and camera.Figure 2: Linda Alterwitz (2013) Image from ‘Signature of Heat’
Black and white, photographically, could be considered a method of De-privileging human perception from how we perceive the world around us. We do not see the world in black and white, we see in colour, yet this perception of the world is still limited in the wider spectrum that exists. Richard Mosse as an example, utilises infrared camera technology and film to show the world outside our human range of perception (Fig: 1), additionally, Linda Alterwitz created her series ‘signatures of Heat’ by utilising a thermal imaging camera, which seems to have particular resonance now we are living in the ‘new normal’ (Fig: 2). Although I have used film photography a fair amount in my time as a photographer, being old enough to have studied the subject without digital technology having the kind of impact that it does now, I would not comfortably use the medium to produce work that I was invested in as much as the MA. This is very much tied into the ability to check and recheck on the spot until I was able to achieve the result I needed. The more I am shooting with the medium format camera however, the more careful I have become in the setting up and creating of my images, not to say that I still do not make mistakes – some of the images have come back soft, or in the extreme, technical issues have led to losing images.
Figure 3: Dorothea Lange (1939) ‘Migrant Mother’ before and after retouching.
In terms of viewing the world outside how we perceive it however, Black and white is a more common way of showing us this. Aesthetically we as humans find its look quite pleasing and our collective learned knowledge creates the perception of black and white as ‘art,’ or for more ‘serious’ work, which is born from the collective experience of a history of images presented in black and white; the ubiquity and fame of ‘Migrant Mother’ is a notable example of this, as Sally Stein points out: “often circulated as the centrepiece of the documentary canon” (2020, p. 62), which is despite its problematic approach to the facts surrounding the story and the notorious retouching of the thumb from the frame (Fig: 3). Human perception has in part been shaped by this view of the world even though we do not process the objects within it in this way, these images stay with us and create a collective memory of them.
As I have started to consider the photograph as a kind of object, shooting film creates this in a way that digital does not. The negative is a tangible object and shooting in a 6X7 format also attributes a preciousness to it. I am now acutely aware of each frame shot; each one must be carefully considered as each one costs money to produce. A roll of 120 film cost me between £4.50 – £5 allowing 10 frames per roll of film equaling 50 pence per frame, however factoring in processing and time, this would easily be over a £1 per image. As a process existing outside of my usual comfort zone, it is also an apparatus that I am not used to using either, which links to this week’s consideration of de-privileging the lens. Although I am not rejecting the lens completely, I am moving away from an easier approach to my photography and making it more of a precious object once again; more of a de-privileging the digital sensor and the ease in which I can make my images. These parameters can support a more focused approach to the creation of the work.
Figure 4: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Portrait affected by light leaking into RB67 Film back.
Technically, as mentioned earlier, this is not without its challenges. I had a glitch with an early roll of film that resulted in a serious light leak that ruined the majority of that film (Fig: 4). The portraits that I have been seeking in the public space are hard work for me to approach and shoot as it takes a fair amount of pushing myself to approach people, usually a good couple of weeks in each of the modules spent talking myself into taking these pictures to the point where it might just be easier to do something else, which makes any issues with the results doubly frustrating. However, this does create a more personal connection to the work as I become much more invested in all of the steps of the process in order to achieve a good result. People are at the heart of what I am trying to achieve.
Reality as we perceive it, has qualities and characteristics, which are tangible to us, to our senses, and some qualities, which are not tangible but nether-the-less fundamental to our understanding. By de-privileging the human there is an acknowledgment that the object continues to exist regardless of whether the human perceives it or not, Graham Harmon notes: “the infamous claim that the Pharaoh Ramses II cannot have died of tuberculosis, since in ancient Egypt that disease was not yet discovered” (2020, p. 33), which points out to us that it is easy to forget that our human perception is just part of the spectrum of representation and things exist outside of our awareness.
When photographing this reality, I am transferring some of these qualities onto the surface of the digital sensor, or the emulsion of the film. Qualities are transferred into an impression of this concrete world yet, there are also the qualities of the medium that are important to consider, which also have an effect on the way that the object based in the reality is perceived. Black and white seem the most obvious because it strips out information that we as humans are used to using to understand the world. However the object exists in multiple ways it can be perceived, outside the human range of perception, as the examples of Mosse and Alterwitz show. Black and white in these terms is an equally valid representation in that it is equally limited.
Figure 5: Sebastiano Pomata & Phil Hill (May, 2020) Negative re-photographed
It occurred to me that even though I am shooting film, I am still reliant on my DSLR to digitise the negative (mainly because of the lock down it is my only means of scanning, yet the point would remain for other forms of digitisation). The qualities transferred from reality onto the film emulsion are once again transferred onto another apparatus, the digital camera; One apparatus transferring to another apparatus. I made reference to this in an earlier exploration, where I took a negative I invited a friend to shoot for me and I copied it onto another roll of film, which appropriates that image and creates an object that is mine even though I have never been to Barcelona (Fig: 5). The reality of the image that I copied becomes even further removed from the reality that my friend Seb originally photographed.
Flusser notes that: “Aparatuses are black boxes that simulate thinking” (2000, p. 32), so what is the thinking that I am trying to simulate? The first black box is the film camera, which is being used to create a sense of the documentary aesthetic, a sense of the nostalgia, to a connection to a past that is perceived to be in decline. I have aimed to start making this palpable in the current idea of the ‘new normal,’ there might be a longing for the time before the pandemic. Aesthetically, I know that the images will be pleasing to look at, as if they could be from ‘another time’ as was noted of Alys Tomlinson’s Ex-Voto series (Molloy, 2019). There is a pathos in our collective understanding of images made during this time.
If reality has qualities that transfer and become in part replaced by the qualities of the film camera and emulsion, then both of these have certain agency over the representation of the object of that image – this agency then takes a role in shaping how we perceive. Those transferred qualities are then transferred and changed again when the negative becomes digitised and the reality recorded is another step removed. This digital image is a copy of a copy and many of the qualities of the black and white negative have been changed, and in some cases limited by the use of the digital camera. Ironically, some of my choices for using film are because of its opposition to the look of digital imagery but needs to be turned into a digital image in order for it to be useful online.
The second black box is the digital camera I am using to ‘scan’ the negative and has become a necessary part of the process to get my work in front of an audience. This black box is used as a means of translating the simulated thinking of the 1st black box into a usable form, yet it is important to consider the process and chain of qualities that have taken place having been fundamentally changed from the recorded reality, apparatus to apparatus.
Bibliography
Flusser, V., 2000. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. 2018 Reprint ed. London: Reaktion Books.
Harmon, G., 2020. Art and Objects. 1st Paperback ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Lamarque, P. & Olsen, S. H., 2004. Aesthetics and thne Philosophy of Art. 2 ed. Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Molloy, C., 2019. Alys Tomlinson. [Online] Available at: https://www.1000wordsmag.com/alys-tomlinson/ [Accessed 15 June 2020].
