35mm Film Photography.
Pentax K1000 Camera
Kodak 400 TMAX Black & White
Ilford HP5+ Black & White
Ilford B&W Paper 8X10 Multigrade IV
The idea of this project is formed after I saw research, which states that the average time of audiences gaze at each artwork in the gallery or museum is about 2-3 seconds. So, the main goal and the answer I would like to explore in this project is, how to catch the audience’s attention from an enormous of artworks, or how to convey main opinions to the audience in short 2 seconds.
I choose black and white film, without the interference of color, audiences can more focus on the image content itself and on its composition as a whole. Also, the b/w form allows my other designed elements more stand out, such as clear and organized composition, elegant patterns and geometric shapes, and smooth transition between black and white.
To guide the audience’s gaze, I put the thing I would like to emphasize in the opposition, which means the white within the huge dark space or the black in the white background. This high contrast of black and white could easily catch the audience's attention, but I noticed that image should not purely black and white, not like a photogram. I seek a sense of harmonious balance of black and white composition, there should be infinite variation between black and white and there should present the beauty of detail within the dark part. As we know, digital cameras are not able to capture the detail under low light conditions, there may be a lot of noise in the dark part even you adjust them in post-production. By contrast, the form of film photography allows my idea to happen, as long as there is detail, shape and line appear on negative, you definitely could print it out by changing the exposure time, developing time, enlarger aperture, the filter number, or all of them. Meanwhile, the flexibility of adjustment shows another advantage of film is each printed film photos are unique, any factors during the whole production process will result in a different piece of film photos.
Make it stand out.
Shoot it.
To get a high contrast between white and black, light and shadow are necessary. Meanwhile, to get the smooth transition of black and white, the shooting time could not be noon. And due to the number of each film is limited and each take is valuable and irrepealable, I carefully design the shooting time, shooting position, and light directions, to get the best result each time.
Develop it.
Compared to the digital camera, the process to get the result of the film takes is complex. The camera could check and replay photos anytime anywhere, by contrast, the film has to wait until it finished the whole development process. However, this feature makes each film take is valuable and after careful consideration, and brings the pleasure of unboxing.
In addition, the advantages of the film of its flexibility and uniqueness are also present here. Different brand of film requires different concentration proportion of chemical. The developing time and temperature of chemical liquid also will affect the result, if you want high contrast you should appropriately increase develop time, or if you want more details on negative you should appropriately shorten develop time. Besides that, I found different brands of film have different textures, which makes them are experts in different aspects. For example, Kodak 400 TMAX Black & White has a higher presence of b/w color contrast, and Ilford HP5+ Black & White includes more detail in the dark and can present a more smooth color transition.
Print it.
I noticed that a film camera could almost completely catch the light, and reflect the subject’s detail to the camera. As long as there is detail, shape or line appear on negative, you definitely could print it out according to various operations in the Darkroom. By changing the exposure time, developing time, aperture, the filter number, or all of them. The same piece of negative film could print out different tone, feeling, and contrast, which I think the digital camera could not do these. Meanwhile, I noticed that when I am using an enlarger and set timer to calculate exposure time, the time is different, that is to say, if I want to get the exposure result of 1.5s of a sky, I noticed 1s+0.5s is not equal to 0.5s+0.5s+0.5s, they will get different results, 1s+0.5s looks darker as a whole, and 0.5s+0.5s+0.5s will create blending color the sky part.
clear and obvious by changing the exposure time, developing time, aperture, the filter number, or all of them. Also, according to the multiple operations in the Darkroom, the same piece of negative film could print out different tone, feeling, and contrast, which I think the digital camera could not do these. Meanwhile, I noticed that when I am using an enlarger and set timer to calculate exposure time, the time is different, that is to say, if I want to get the exposure result of 1.5s of a sky, I noticed 1s+0.5s is not equal to 0.5s+0.5s+0.5s, they will get different results, 1s+0.5s looks darker as a whole, and 0.5s+0.5s+0.5s will create blending color the sky part.