Analogue Photoshoot

After using and creating my digital pinhole to create the same effect as a film camera I decided to compare the difference in quality of images with the digital pinhole and my Praktica film camera. The image below was a image that was captured with my film camera and a problem occurred here that is very common with film cameras and it's that the image is underexposed and to make sure no images are underexposed or over exposed takes time and practise to understand the light balance and which shutter speed to use. Another problem I found with this image and actually with all of my images is that there is green streaks through the images and this annoyed me cause majority of my images on the negatives would have looked fine and usable without the green streak.

Here are a few images that didn't work and still have a surreal look to them as there a bit's missing or not fully developed.

Contact Sheet

Life Through A Globe

I came across this image while looking through Pinterest and it inspired me to try and create my own section on my blog called 'Life Through A Globe' where I experimented taking photos through a glass globe. Also by doing this I have been able to create a surreal photo as the image is flipped while looking through it and is making the world look upside-down. I was unable to discover who actually took this photo as it was only re-pinned on Pinterest who had found it online.

This photo however is not a example of surrealist photography as you can tell by the colour palette is not as bland as the a surreal photo would consist of.

Here is a photo which I have taken using the same style and trying to create the theme of surrealism. I have done this by dulling down the colour palette, I did this by changing the levels on the photo to make the darker colours even darker so it would give that feeling of surrealism. Also by having the globe in the centre of the photograph, it gives the image a focal point and will drew the audience's attention to the globe. Having a aperture of about f5.6 gave the blur around the globe and helps the globe more in being the focal point.

This photo again is using the sam style and giving the surreal feel to the photo as the image with in the globe is flipped. Again I have tried to dull down the colour palette to make it look more surreal as the image before hand was bright and slightly over exposed and wouldn't have represented surrealism. Using the globe it refracts the image/object behind it and will flip anything that is placed behind it and it is replicating what your eyes do. What you are seeing through the globe is what we would originally see but our eyes the flip that and you the are seeing the correct way up. I took this photo with an aperture of f5.6 to make the sphere the focal point.

My final image I have made two variations as I was unsure which looked more effective. I have used the same aspects as the other images, e.g. focal point on the globe and dulled colour palette but only in certain areas of the image but instead of keeping the image colours flowing I chose to isolate the colours with the globe and then the same but surrounding the globe. I prefer using this style of isolating colours in certain parts as it is another way of presenting surrealism and makes the stand out to the viewer. This image was captured using ISO 400 and f5.6 to give the blur to the background of the sphere.

Surrealism Essay

Surreal London

Surreal Underground

During my trip to London, I had to travel a lot and a majority of the time I was using the underground. This photo that I captured doesn't just look surreal but felt very surreal while taking it as London is and extremely busy area of England full of tourists, business workers and general citizens, but as I was walking down this underground walkway there was absolutely nobody down there at the time I took it. It made think is there some reason I shouldn't be down here, does everyone else know something I don't and really made me question the area.

This aspects that made this photo so surreal was the lighting was terrible and really dark, also the colour palette is extremely dull using browns and dark colours. Finally, it follows most of the conventions of a surreal photograph and makes it what it is. I also haven't edited this image at all and this is exactly how the image was taken, straight from the SD card. The photo is a one off photo and was the only photo that I took while I was walking as I didn't really want to hang around there for long because the area had quite and eery feel to it.

I have also tried editing this photo in a few different ways to get some different effects with it:

Here I have simply added a black and white layer over it, changed the levels and saturation a tiny bit and finally erased certain areas of the black and white layer which contained the most colours and it gave it this effect.

With this photo I again used something very simple and just add a black and white layer over the top and that's it. I haven't touched the levels or saturation as I tried changing them and personally I thought it ruined the photo.

History Of Photography Exhibition

During this half term, I travelled down to London to visit the 'History Of Photography' exhibition and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition was extremely informative and consisted of many famous photographers work.

In 1852 the V&A became the first museum to collect photographs. Its collection is now among the most important in the world and forms the UK's national collection of the art of photography. The works in the gallery highlights from the permanent collection. They represent a wide range of uses, processes and styles of photography from its invention until the present.

The photographs currently on display were all made as series and sequences. From start, photographers documented, edited and interpreted the world through groups of images. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, systematic surveys of buildings, landscapes and people were used to compare, classify and record. 

Series photographs enabled scientific observations, allowed multiple viewpoints and conveyed the passage of time. Today, photographic artists often use sequences to present a narrative or reveal subtleties of emotion.