Darkroom Photography (Pt. II)

Hello friends!
The Spring semester has gone by so fast! With that comes yet another compilation of completed projects that  I can show you guys.

   So in the first part of this blog series, I showed some of my favorites from my perspective project and my self portrait project. This time, I'm back with four more projects that I wanted to show you guys! Last time I posted about four photos from each project that were my favorite works, but this time I'll narrow it down to one or two each.

   Since my last post I feel like I better understand my camera and the entire scientific process of developing film and exposing/developing the prints.

   So, I guess let's dive right in where we left off: Project 3.
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Project 3: Depth of Field

   I actually didn't follow the correct directions for this project (as far as the technical settings go on the camera), but I still like how these turned out. So for this first print, I captured my daruma doll, with a blurred candle and plant behind it. I thought this photo showed a lot of value so I felt a need to include it in this post.

   For the second image of choice, I photographed one of my favorite things--my window. I absolutely love natural lighting for my photos, even any blog photos I decide to take. For black and white film, I think natural lighting is the most tasteful, soft touch I could add to my photos. I also like the clarity of the strings on the blinds, in this shot. Line work gives the photo a little extra direction.

Project 4: Shadow Play

   This project was all about capturing shadows in a creative manner. So one morning, I woke up a bit earlier than normal and realized that the sun was shining so brightly through my blinds, cloaking my wall in geometric shadows. I thought these stripey shadows were a perfect touch, so I made sure to include them in my first shot.

   For the next shot, I was in love with the shadow that my candle warmer was casting on the wall. That was also where the light from the windows began to fade away, so it created a slight gradation towards the right side of the image. I just thought it came together pretty hauntingly.

Project 5: Creative Motion

   So for this project, we were instructed to capture motion in a few different ways. For the first shot, I did a panning technique against some of the trees that run along my driveway. This technique is where I up the exposure time and follow an object, so the object appears to be frozen, while its surroundings are blurred. So for this shot, I followed a specific group of leaves on the tree when it was blowing in the wind to capture some stillness and some motion.

   For this same shot, I used the same trees as my background and stood still, letting my hair and the trees become a blur around me. Everything almost becomes overstimulating, with the trees, my hair, and my fuzzy hood blowing in all directions.

Project 6: Burning & Dodging

   For some reason (maybe because of the shine of the paper), it's really difficult to tell the difference between these two photos. But one actually has a darker background than the other. That's because I "burned" the edges of one of the bottom image around my cat (A.K.A. I exposed the paper to light for a slightly longer time to add contrast to Ace's surroundings). I think my arm reflected over the bottom image (when taking the photo of the two together) a bit so it looks lighter than the image above it, but that's the one that's actually darker. But what's really important here is my cat. Look at that little tongue!

   There were a couple of projects that I decided not to photograph for this post simply because they were photos you've already seen before. The first of these projects was our contrast printing assignment, where we used a negative of any image from any previous project and we tested the color filter settings to take away or to add contrast to that print. The other project was the enlargement assignment, where I just made an image three different sizes. Once again, this image was just one from a previous project that we could reuse, simply to practice working with the enlargers.

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Thank you guys so much for checking in, today! I can't wait to show you guys my portfolio (once it's graded).

Keep on grinning!

​Lydia