EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Here are my first few photographs that I have created for this project.


I have discovered how wide the editorial area of photography is after seeing the many different interpretations on what it actually is and the many different styles and subject matters of these photos presented in magazines and online.

   

EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Editorial photography to me, is essentially a photograph that can support text. I think that in order to create a photograph that goes with text means that photograph has to be interesting; have a narrative or a story to it or something happening. 

As a starting point to this project, I wanted to look at the things around me and see if there is anything that I can document in my everyday life in order to create an editorial series of photographs.

This image is taken by photographer 'Nick Waplington' and although he is known for his documentary photography his work shows a great deal of narrative throughout.

This image documents a man who is fixing his car but the surroundings of the child playing and the mother with the pushchair  make the photograph interesting; because there are a lot of things going on.

Every area of the photograph has a subject although the child and her bike and the mother and pram stand out due to the bright colours, the image is quite heavy and contrasty making the brighter colours really bold and the blacks in the image really black, this makes the image have a lot of clarity.

This image is an example of how an everyday scenario can be photographed and made into a narrative image that has a story and could support a piece of text, therefore I would like to use my home and everyday life as a starting point in creating my editorial photographs.

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

EVALUATION

After researching landscape photographers and their work to gain inspiration I have created 5 final prints using a 5x4 medium format camera to shoot the photographs and then using the darkroom in order to create my prints.
  After researching the work of the likes of John Blakemore, I felt inspired to create rich and contrasty prints by ensuring my exposures were correct and that I concentrated on the developing process. When beginning this project, I had little knowledge on medium format, yet I feel I have developed by exploring the camera and independent time in the darkroom. I still feel there is room for improvements with my prints and imperfections with my prints but they have progressed massively from the start of the project.
  When starting the project I felt quite confident as my first negatives came back with good exposures yet after this a lot of my film came out blank and therefore I needed to learn more about the camera but after taking the camera out alone and taking my photographs in slow steps using the light meter my negatives became to come back with better exposures making it a lot easier to make prints.
  Although I feel confident with taking the photographs, I have occurred a lot of problems with processing which means that my negatives can sometimes become scratched from being handled too much due to my hesitation and this is something I believe I have developed in but I believe I need to develop further.
  Despite the problems that have arose for my during processing my film, I feel I have developed the most in the darkroom after spending time in the darkroom alone and taking my time whilst deciding on exposure times and doing extra test strips in order to gain accuracy I think that my prints are a lot better exposed after this project which I hoped for after looking at the quality of colour in other photographers works and how it affects the over all feel of the print. I tried to time my prints perfectly in the developer, stop and fix for this project whereas in the past I have not concentrated on this greatly.
If I were to improve my prints and project on a whole, I would definitely do a lot more shooting in order to gain more and more confidence with the camera and become really familiar with medium format so that it would be a easier process in terms of setting the camera up and setting it to the right exposure and shutter speed. I would also shoot more in order to gain more experience with my processing as I think that this is the thing I need to improve most as it has a huge effect on my over all prints if my negatives are damaged in anyway and most damage caused is during processing.
I feel I have improved over all on printing, which is something I am not new to but I have widened my knowledge by learning how to print with medium format, I have also gained skills on a whole by being introduced to a medium format camera but I would like to become more familiar to the processing process in order to become a more skilled photographer

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

PROCESSING

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So today I went into the processing room after another shoot at the Marina with the Medium Format Camera, I had real difficulty with this procedure and have done with this whole project and I would like to progress in this in order to prevent damage to my negatives.
Today, the negatives on the end of the negative holder for the dev tank both came out really streaky where the developer had only reached certain areas at some points therefore I need to be more careful of this for next time as I have lost 2 photographs due to this and my other negatives have scratch marks on due to the clips therefore I will be more aware of this next time also.

 LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

Darkroom

After processing some successful negatives and creating contact sheets I began to use the enlarger and make some prints.

Although I have never make prints to this size and using 5x4 film, I took to this really well when applying my skills I already had.

Despite having troubles processing meaning some of my negatives were damaged my prints are surprisingly successful in terms of contrast, tones and exposure.

After doing two test strips for each image, all my prints from yesterdays shoot were exposed for 20-22 seconds, I was happy with the consistency with the development process today with my prints and all my prints that I

created today are of the same tones and have a similar contrast meaning that they work well as a series.

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY


Eliot Porter Photography

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

Making the most out of the weather, I took the medium format camera out to shoot today and left is todays set up.
I went out alone today for the first time with this camera which meant I had to rely only on myself to set the camera up.
Despite hesitating at first, I set the camera up without any problems and was able to shoot 4 sheets of film, as it was a consistently sunny day the camera didn't need much adjusting after I shot my first sheet of film but I used the light meter in order to make sure the exposure is correct on all of them which I will be processing later today.
After going out on my own to take photographs I feel a lot more familiar with this type of camera and a lot more confident about shooting medium format, I found it really effective going out alone and discovering the camera for myself and all its aspects.
I decided to shot some of the film portrait apposed to landscape in order to see the effects of this and experiment so I am excited to see the outcome.