Chemigrams are a form of photography that are done without a camera. Instead of a camera and physical items you use chemicals on light sensitive photographic paper. Chemigrams were first created by Pierre Cordier in Belgium. Firstly you apply the chosen chemicals to the light sensitive paper [you can use chemicals like hand cream or nail varnish]. Then expose the paper to UV light in order for the paper to react. after that you put the paper into the developer. you can change the amount of time you leave it in the developer depending on how dark you would like the result. you then place the paper Ito finishing solution to set it in place and finally wash of the remaining products with water. In our initial experiments in class we attempted to create our own. on this occasion we did not have access to a dark room and so we have to work rather quickly. at first i followed the order given above however for the last two chemigrams i switched the order of the developer and finishing liquid which created very surprising results. Overall i was not completely happy with many of the results of this first attempt however i learned some usefull techniques to use in future attempts. |
Scadographs, created by christian schad in 1918 is a method of cameraless photography and one of the first intentionally abstract photography. he wanted to break photography out of its square and rectangular boundaries and so he trimmed and cut the corners and sides of his images resulting in an even more abstract appeal.
to create this form of photogram, schad covered the surface of photosensitive photo with objects such as scraps of paper and fabrics that he often searched for in garbage cans in the street. As part of our darkroom experiments we made our own attempts at schadographs. I started with photosensitive paper and I then selected many scraps of paper, wire and other miscellaneous items that I found and I organised in a messy but simple way. I started with the circle of newspaper and the paintbrush. I then randomly placed the remaining items until I was happy with the outcome. I then held it under strong UV light for eight seconds. after this I put it into developer for one minute to ensure the saturation of the black. |
Slide Film Manipulation is a method that involves taking a used slide film and alter it by drawing, cutting, scratching or any other means to deface it. I started with an image of a woman sat alone on a hill with a river beside her. when I first saw this image it gave me a feeling of loneliness and isolation. I wanted people seeing the final image to also feel the isolation displayed by the subject and so I first look a black pen and covered the lady face. I did this to suggest that this could, in fact, be anyone and anyone can feel like this. after this I tried to create a red sky above her by using red ink. However this did not work as I had wanted to to and so decided to cut a section of the sky instead. I found a scrap of another piece of film and I really liked the texture of it. I then stuck this scrap over the hole I had cut from my original slide. finally, I wanted to add more layers of light to the lower portion of the image because I felt it was very dull. therefore I used a scalpel to scratch lines into the river beside the woman. this allowed light to travel through this area easily making it pop and attract your eyes. Overall I was very happy with my first attempt and I was excited to try it again.
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