Taking Time To Develop Film

I had taken my camera to Newcastle for a change of scene for my street photography prints. When it came to developing the film I rushed putting the film onto the reel in the loading bay. I think the reel had come apart in the middle so instead of the film being separated allowing the chemicals to flow over all the film, with mine the film must have come into contact with another part of the film, making them stick together so the chemicals didn't get chance to work on certain parts of the film. I did a contact sheet anyway but it was very white and only a few worked. So next time when I develop a film i will take more care and time on what I am doing.

What Street Photography Is To Me

I was looking on the internet on "what is street photography" but I soon found out this was useless, as there are so many different opinions and everyone you end up looking at says something different. Eric Kim has also mentioned this on his blog.

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/about/what-is-street-photography/

So I thought I would just mention what I think street photography is. When people say its not always about capturing activity on the street and portraying the urban environment, I disagree. For me thats exactly what street photography is all about. When i'm out taking photos I am always looking for the grimmest places and situations. I think this is because of the modern world filling the streets with rubbish, chewing gum and dog muck. Because of people not caring what there actions are in comparison to the way people might have behaved in the earlier days. I think of what the streets use to look like in pictures from the 1900s. When the streets seemed elegant with members of the public making sure they were looking there best when they went out to the market, people used bikes as transport and genially the streets seemed a lot less dirty and polluted. But today the streets have a whole new look and it's because of the way we have made them. So by taking photos of the raw grime in the streets I think it shows a contrast on how there is a change in human behaviour over time and is not always a good thing in the bigger picture.

The pictures are from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2173872/Edwardian-street-style-Astonishing-amateur-images-capture-fashion-women-London-Paris-century-ago.html 

I have mentioned the 1900s because I really enjoyed the program Mr Selfridge. It was really interesting how he wanted to change the way people shopped and the entire program just made oxford street and London in general just look really classy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLborDbtx3M

Street Photography Location

I have only been doing street photography around Hartlepool and its always been pretty quiet. So I have always been a bit apprehensive about taking close ups of the public as I am never really that desecrate about it. And am not confident enough to just get on with it and go up to people incase of confrontation as photographers in the street are seen as strange and inappropriate at times.

So to save confrontation I have decided to go to a larger destination and have decided on visiting Newcastle. I have decided on Newcastle because it will be really busy and crowded, therefor people will not notice my presents as much, if they do they might think I am taking a photo of someone behind them because of the amount of people on the streets. I am really exited to see what the developed film might look like in compartment to the ones I have done around Hartlepool.

Artist Influences

I was trying to look for a street photographer that had noticeable angles and lines in there photos and thats when I came across Eric Kim.

I like the way he has captured people standing in the exact right place where there are lines or beams of light. I wonder how long he has waited, for someone to walk past in the perfect place? I also really like how both images look rather symmetrical as there is a focal point in the middle then lines going off in opposite directions. Next time I go out shooting I am going to try and look out for similar scenario and see what I end up with.

Another thing I like about Eric Kim's work is that he will crouch down on the floor and gets interesting view points and this sometimes distorts the lines making them look elongated and deceiving. I defiantly think I will be using this technique next time i'm on the streets and then people might not be so intimidated as your not at face level. I shall also try higher points of view, looking down on people as they go about there everyday lives.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=eric+kim&espv=210&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=mfZfUrC9JsWv7Aad9oCwDg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1001&bih=512&dpr=1#es_sm=91&espv=210&q=eric+kim+street+photography&tbm=isch 

Group Critique

In the group critique today I had 5 prints on the table that I had just picked randomly. When I saw them all together it looked messy as there wasn't really a link between the pictures. So I thought I would see what the critique was before I chose a theme to follow.

When walking round the rest of the classes work, it was really good to see what everyone else was doing and some of them made me think what I could be doing differently with my work. When we had walked round and made comments on everyones work, we could then have a look at what other people had said about our own. Most people said my strengths were either getting close ups of people or capturing odd angles. My weaknesses were that a lot of my images weren't focused very well and these are mainly the ones of the people because I panic and don't concentrate that much on the focus as I am trying to be quick and desecrate.

So with the feedback that I received, I have decided to go down the root of trying to capture unique architecture and angles in the street whilst people are floating around doing there own thing. And making sure I take the time to make sure its all in focus. Also I quite liked to vertical images so i will try and do a few more of them.

Developing Film Panic

I started to develop my second film that I had taken around Hartlepool. I had put the film on the reel then started the developing process, that took 20 minutes. It was all going well until I went to poor the developer out into the waste bucket, and the filter fell out and with it followed two reels of black and white film! I grabbed to two films out of the bucket and quickly put them back in the developing tank and screwed the filter back on. I was sure the films were going to be ruined but I carried on with the stop for 20 seconds and fixer for 3 minutes. When I put them in the water it was the moment of truth and I started to pull them off the reel and have a little look. One film only had about 3 usable images on it but the other was absolutely fine and had an entire usable film. 

So i managed make a contact sheet but it needed a about 55 seconds under the light so i'm guessing when it fell out into the waste and got exposed to light to soon it over exposed the howl film. So instead of going up in fives under the enlarger for my test strip I went up in tens and then when I found one at the right shade I did another test strip around that number.         

Paul Russell

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY NOW
Page 171
Bristol, England,
2007

This is an image that i came across in a street photography book. The image is by Paul Russell and It stood out for me because I thought it was funny. because old people are meant to be really cute and quiet, but in this case it looks like one lady is going to wallop the other with her walking stick.

When I was walking round Hartlepool I had this image in the back of my head and was looking for similar situations. I still wasn't that confutable at taking photos of the general public yet but for some reason I felt okay taking photos of the elderly because most of the time they were just wondering around in there own little world and didn't even realise I was there.
This is what I ended up with and although they weren't about to start scrapping or anything, it shows that old woman just love to have a chat in the street and this maybe because they are filling a lonely gap in the day and this maybe where they get the most company. The image is out of focus though, so I will be going out again and i'm sure the streets of Hartlepool won't be shot of elderly pedestrians having 10 minute chats on every corner.

The Dark Room.

Last week was my first ever experience using a dark room and i found it really exiting. I was a little worried about things at first because I really didn't want to ruined the film as there seemed to be lots of little thing that you could do wrong. The main thing was going into the loading room in complete darkness to load the film onto the spool. At first I was thinking, how on earth am I going to do that? But when I was in there I got a feel for the action that is needed to click the film round the spool. I think that was the hardest part because you still don't know if you have done it right until you have finished the whole process and look at the end result.

Thankfully I managed to process the whole film with no problems. After it had dried it was time to take go into the dark room and make a contact sheet. I had only ever heard of a contact sheet on Photoshop and it ended up being the same thing as what we were going to be doing in the dark room. But it seemed so much more satisfying than making one from scratch rather than on Photoshop. The best thing about making the contact sheet was putting it in the developer and watching it process on the photo paper, and seeing that it's clear and you can see all the individual images all together.