14th September
Task: Take more images relating closer to the brief and edit them.
Labour and Time: Image and Brief Development
Labour and Time: Break Work Development
12th September
Over the break I continued to develop images that I had taken prior to lockdown. However, this time I moved to digital images and sadly away from film for the more practical element during lockdown.
I started by treating the images the same way I had done film. Pasteurising, inverting, adjusting the curves and layering the original image back overtop at around a 60% opacity rate. For the most part this worked well and ending in a number of interesting results.
Depending on the environment the image was taken led entirely to the effect on the image after being pasteurised. Ranging in a variety of different colours to giving a hallucinogenic feel to the image.
I then branched out further developing images out of order to discover the effects. Sometimes just pasteurising the image. Other times taking 2 images, one B&W and the other pasteurised and inverted, that were taken at slightly different angles and overlaying them with opacity knocked back.
After that I continued to explore and develop ways of working. Some of which are probably cursed and shouldn’t exist but it’s part of the process and others turning out decent.
Labour and Time: Negative Photoshopped Sequences
25th August
Task: To create at least 3 pieces of work further developing ideas already created.
The piece is supposed to be in reference to the distortion of the societal pressures to constantly be progressing and working and that laziness is something that we shouldn’t practice.
This work relates to the distortion of goals and how relaxation and pleasure is so often overlooked for the larger goal. But the larger goal isn’t always what is anticipated.
This piece is supposed to be in reference to the loneliness of the labour and hard work that is necessary to be lazy.
Labour and Time: Negative Development
24th August
Prior to lockdown I had discovered an old film camera that had been gifted to me, Cleaned it up and took it to the photo warehouse to learn how to use it. After getting a new film, a new battery and learning how to load the coloured film I began to take photos in town. The images related to my ideas are pretty similar to what I am doing now however the execution is a little different. I decided to continue with the film as I had already taken the images.
After taking 2 rolls of coloured film I got them developed into negatives. However, the USB stick that the digital coloured images were loaded onto failed the day we went into lockdown. So I had to figure out a way of scanning these images and deciding whether I was going to learn how to colour them as well or change my idea.
First I tried using a window. Carefully taping the negative to a blank white piece of paper, then taping that piece of paper to a window and using my camera to focus on the negative. This failed for many reasons EG: all my windows are high up and in a difficult place so I had nothing to balance my camera on, the camera couldn’t focus, the light from behind wasn’t bright enough overall the image wasn’t in focus and was extremely difficult to execute.
My next attempt was scanning with a printer. It worked well, had a lot of detail but not enough to where I was satisfied.
After that, I turned to good old youtube and tried it a different way. I downloaded a blank white image, zoomed in on it so it went all the way to the edges, laid the negative over top to the screen and tried to take a photo with my camera. However, that failed because it couldn’t focus. So I attempted it with two phones, one the backlight and the other taking the image. This was the best result so far however left a lot of banding and extra noise.
In the end decided to flip my laptop so that the screen was facing up with a blank white background, stacking two piles of books to lay the negative on with part of the negative hanging off and take the photo with my phone. This eliminated banding, extra noise and gave me a detailed shot. After learning how to recolour a negative in photoshop I have some images that I enjoy.
Labour and Time: New Approach to Brief
24th August
I will be working on the brief ‘In praise of laziness’. I plan on using images taken on a film camera of people, buildings and architecture in the city before the lockdown during the day.(These may end up being in negative format as the USB stick that the film place gave me with the images in digital format failed)
In today’s society and economy it is so hard to be lazy because we have been instilled with this notion that we need to constantly be working towards our next goal and if we aren’t we should feel guilty about that.
I want to work with film as another medium that represents that idea. It is the representation of having to work hard to be lazy.
Eugene Atget has been an inspirational person when it comes to this work. His documentation of Paris in the late 1890’s in film really influenced me to look into film more closely
I have had to look at using my works that I had done prior to lockdown in a different light as my digital files were corrupted. I still have to develop my ideas behind displaying in lockdown EG: will I find a way to print and physically display work or will it be virtual
Extra Links:
Eugene Atget, https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/eug%C3%A8ne-atget?all/all/all/all/0
Converting B&W negatives, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwTho9yL56A
Converting coloured negatives, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXuwnt5ba8M
Lockdown: Stock Take
19th August
COMPUTERS: Apple desktop – 2020, Apple Laptop.
CAMERAS: Canon EOS R (Digital), Minolta Dynax 500si (Film).
LENSES: 75 – 300mm Canon, 18 – 200mm Tamron.
OTHER CAMERA EQUIPMENT: 1 Small tripod, 4 USB Sticks, 5 Camera Cards, 1 Hard Drive (2TB), Flash, Speed light 430EXlll-RT Canon (Attachable to camera).
SOFTWARE: All Adobe Software, I Movie, Basic Pro Tools.
OTHER RANDOM PIECES: JBL Headphone, JBL Earbuds, 50 Developed negative film shots from trips around the city, 1 full + 15 coloured shots left in un-used undeveloped rolls, 1 B&W un-used, undeveloped roll, OPPO Phone, Books/Pens/Pencils/Coloured Pencils.
Labour and Time: Working back to front, Editing phase
17th August
Task: Develop and decide on a rhythm informed by your filming. It could be a screen shot every 3 seconds and a compilation of these screen shots into an animation/gif.
For this task I decided to take a screen shot of the video every time DOUG licked his fur.
Labour and Time: Working back to front, Film phase
17th August
Film Phase A: Film a act of personal labour.
For me self-care is quite labouring and I often ignore it. Even getting up to get a glass of water is mentally labouring if I am deep enough.
Film Phase B: Film an act of labour someone else is participating in.
Along the same lines as self-care I accidentally got one of my flat cats (DOUG) cleaning himself.
Labour and Time: Labour gathered in a single image
11th August
Task: To take a single image representing labour and time
This image represents time and the repetitiveness of our day to day lives as often we do the same thing day in and day out with only minor changes. This action can often be very labouring to not only our physical self but also our mental one.
Labour and Time: Labour in a single shot
11th August
Task: In pairs or groups of 3 film a 2 minute video that is continuous and displays a form of labour.