Weekly Reflection

My Second Week of Senior Project:

This week was a very busy week for me. I finished printing my abstract photos, then I shot, developed, and printed my portraits photos, I ran into my first problem, finished making my book, and finally, sent my book out to be published.
For my final abstract photos I printed a photo of a slide, clouds, and shadows of a jungle gym in the sand. To print these pictures I set up the photo room by making my developer and fixer. For the developer 3 ounces of concentrated developer diluted by 27 ounces of water, and for the fixer 6 ounces of concentrated fixer diluted by 24 ounces of water. For the “Slide” picture the exposure was a little too bright because I was pointing my camera upwards which would have captured more sunlight. Therefore, I get the exposure of the print to the photo paper limited. I printed the photo with an 8 aperture to control the amount of light that hit and only left it under the light for 18 seconds. I added 3 more seconds because when I only exposed the paper for 15 seconds the print was too light. I chose not to use a filter because I really like the amount of contrast that was in the photo already, and I blew the negative before printing it so there was no dust specs on the print. For the “Clouds” picture the tonal range and exposure to sunlight (because I had to point the camera upwards toward the sun) was very similar to that of the “Slide” so I didn’t use a filter, and I used an 8 aperture. However, because the light directly from the sun is in the photo I used 15 seconds instead of 18 because the picture would have come out too dark with 18 seconds. Finally, for the “Shadow” picture I used a 3.5 filter to really make the darkness of the shadow contrast with the light colored sand. I used an 8 aperture and exposed the paper for 20 seconds.
For my portrait pictures, I took Annie W. and Annie O. into the photography studio behind Slocumb Hall. When taking portraits in a studio it is important to place the light correctly on the subject so shadows wont disrupt the picture. Both Annies are about the same size with similar face shapes so I luckily only had to set up the lights once. When printing these pictures I chose 2 shots of Annie W., one with her sitting and the other of her making a serious face. I also picked to shots of Annie O. one of me being really close to her face so it looks distorted, and another of her laughing. Because I used the same like on both of them and they were both relatively pale, when printing these pictures I could use the same aperture and time. I used an 8 aperture and exposed the paper for 7 seconds. No filter was necessary for all 4 pictures because the tonal range was nice already.
I had my first problem this week. I was supposed to shoot my lacrosse team for action shots, but due to the deadline and the time it takes to make the book (1-4 days) and then the time it takes to ship the book (2-3 days, I used express shipping) I needed to send my book out to be published as soon as possible, so I could get it back by May 25th the deadline. I didn’t have enough time to shoot, develop, print, and scan all the action shots, so with Patrice’s permission I used some of my old photos that I really liked. I selected a picture of all my different pictures, a picture of Chris drying off his dog Molly, and up close picture of Chris’ other dog Abby, pears lying in leaves after they had fallen off a tree, spices at a market in the Caribbean, and a bean tree. Due to the fact that all these pictures had very similar tonal range and contrast I used the same aperture for all of them, 8. I let my picture of “Variety” expose for 9 seconds, “Molly” expose for 5 seconds, “Abby” expose for 5 seconds, “Pears” expose for 4 seconds, “Spices” expose for 7 seconds, and the “Bean Tree” expose for 10 seconds. I didn’t use a filter for any of them. After all of my prints dried I took them over to Brenda’s office to use her scanner. I scanned all of my prints into her computer. Then I used Photoshop to touch up and dust specs of smudges that I might have missed while printing the photos. Finally, I dragged all of my finished photos into iphoto and placed them in my pre setup book and sent it away to be published. I hopefully will have the book by May 25th so everyone can see the finished product. For the rest of my senior project I plan to work on my self-evaluation.