Final Post

Everything's been handed in now so, until the viva, I suppose that this project is over. I do intend to carry some ideas through to my next project but in the meantime I think its time to evaluate this project, exploring what it is I have learned and what it is I would improve upon, were I given the time.

Firstly, learning outcomes. I think I have actually learnt quite a lot from this project, chiefly is the experience that I gained from using the Bronica, the first time I've used a 'proper' medium format camera (as opposed to the Holga). Early on I decided to use high-iso film and that has been a choice that has paid off. Not only did the fast iso allow me to capture images in particularly low-lighting situations, it gave me the grain, (which was the real reason for my choice), and gave a particularly good texture to skin-tones which would otherwise have appeared a little plain. As well as this I feel much more confident in using Photoshop as a tool to lightly manipulate images, such as using the levels etc. to make images a little clearer, as well as more major work with things like the selection tool, which allowed me to shift about the various quadrants of my Polaroid images.

If I had more time for this project I would have liked to further refine my final images, either choosing to shoot solely in black and white or colour, most likely black and white as I felt that these images captured a more distilled sense of 'looking' at a specific subject. I would also have liked to pick a single final strand to follow, whether to leave clues of identity through small idiosyncratic details in minor clothing or to completely erase any clues as to the identity of the person and have the study of their body being the sole focus I am still unsure.

Until the next project when I hope to further pursue these avenues of investigation, Goodbye.

Darkroom Prints

After having bought some 10x8 pearl photographic paper (resin-coated, not fibre-based), I headed down to the darkroom with negatives in hand. The image I printed was one that's already been scanned in and uploaded here before, so I didn't see the need to scan in and upload the image again, I did however, include some darkroom test-strips (below).

The paper I used was Ilford MGRC Cooltone Pearl, I chose this particular paper because I didn't want to use glossy paper for the low-contrast, high-grain skintones that I'd captured. I felt that the pearl paper really did improve the feel and quality of the images. Though I had scanned the negatives in digitally before I feel that there's always something lacking in the digital prints and copies that the analogue prints have, there's a solidness and the satisfying tangible quality that digital never seems to capture.

Ideally I would have blown these images up to life-size too, had I the time and photographic paper to do so. I don't feel that the 10x8 size quite does them justice but for the time being it is a reasonable substitute.

Full Scale Colour Print

I have just the one full-scale print, which is A1 in size, done on the slightly older (and much cheaper!) printer in the print room. Whilst I was advised that a file size of around 100mb is the ideal for an A1 print it was less of an issue with my Polaroid scans as no matter what the quality of the file, the image can only reproduce the original quality of the Polaroid. As a result of this I soldiered on with my 16mb file and produced a single print. Due to visual acuity, the larger an image is blown up, the further we stand from it to be able to see it all, and therefore the lower the image quality you can get away with, which definitley worked in my favour.

I haven't bothered to reproduce the print here as it would be a photograph of a much larger print and, other than for the sake of scale, there would be so many changes in its appearance by the time it arrived on my blog that it would not be worth it. I have included the original image below, though its been posted on my blog before I thought it would be worth showing it again anyway.

The printer, as I have said before, is particularly old so the results were not completely perfect, darker areas tended to have white lines running vertically down them and the skintones, as the printer was not attached to a calibration unit, have come out rather more pink than the original. If I were to print again using the same machine the skintones could quite easily be corrected manually, reducing the red values of the image with Photoshop before printing, however, the white lines would still be very apparent and so I did not pursue any further prints with this printer.