Digital Negatives/ Dark Room

 As an extended experiment to my project, I have chosen to create digital negatives of a selected few photographs from my final piece. I will then develop these in the dark room using previous skills learned at the beginning of this project. The outcome will essentially be tonal, black and white. This experiment will link well with the theme of my project as the outcomes will reflect the eery and haunted mood.

Ron Reeder
Ron Reeder is famously known for his PhD in biochemistry, however, once he retired, he took up photography full time using the medium of digital negatives to create his photography.
As I am exploring this technique, I felt that his photographs could possibly link in with my project. His selection titled 'Beautiful Creatures' appear to have a similar mood that I would like to achieve.

Objectively, this photograph shows a naked woman. Her face has been cropped out of the composition, and the main focus is her body. The garment that she is wearing appears very light and thin. Objectively, there is movement within the composition. The model appears to be moving her garment, and the camera has captured this movement. This relates to my project, as I too, have experimented with movement. Subjectively, the tonal qualities of this photograph, create a very sombre mood, the movement created enhances the slow shutter speed that Reeder has used as it appears delayed. Relating back to my original photographers, this photograph reminds me of Brooke Shaden's photography. Subjectively, the contrast that comes from the digital negatives, can create a calm and deep mood. As well as the movement linking in with my project, I feel that the contrast would enhance the meaning behind my photographs considering the dark tonal qualities. 

This is the process that I have used;

Firstly, I changed the selected photographs into digital negatives using Photoshop. Below, are the results after I changed the images in Photoshop.

Secondly, I printed these off on acetate.
I then proceeded to the dark room and used the same method that I had used in my early experiments. I layered over the acetate onto the light sensitive paper and exposed.

For my experiments there was a technical problem with the enlargers, therefore I had to use my phone flash light to quickly expose the paper and then develop the paper.

Once I exposed the paper, I used the method below for the designated amount of time at each station for my photographs to develop.

First attempts;

My first attempt, did not come out as I had hoped. You can vaguely see the outline of my photographs. It was the outcome of these, that I realised this would be trial and error. As I was using a light on my phone to expose the photographs, I had no control over the exposure. However, I felt that the original acetate prints could include more contrast, to make the photographs more defined. 

After my first attempts at my samples, I realised that my photographs on the acetate did not have enough brightness and contrast for it to show through in detail, therefore, I went back to rework the original photoshop images, and re printed on acetate.
Below is the re edited versions of the photographs;
As you can see, the contrast is much more dramatic, and there are more black and white areas.

Second attempts;

These two attempts happened after the change of acetate, however, encountered a few more problems. The first photograph, has clearly been exposed for too long as the shaping of my body is recognisable compared to my first attempt, yet still not fully defined. The second photograph has been spoiled in some way. This means that I must have accidentally placed something over the photograph when exposing, or the chemicals were mixed. 

Third attempts;

These are my final attempts. Clearly, comparing to my first attempts, these are significantly more refined.  Due to the technical problems, the photographs came out quite grainy and uneven, however, I feel that this adds to my photographs. The movement has been successfully captured in the second photograph, which is similar to Reeder's photograph above.

Overall, I feel that these experiments were successful. The effect created in the dark room, enhances the storyline behind my project. I feel that, for my project, contrast is an important aspect, and the results of these work in it's favour.  The grainy effect can subjectively reflect the haziness the Mara is experiencing. A problem that I found with the outcomes, is creating the tonal aspects. I felt that using the dark room method, didn't give me enough control that I would of liked to produce the desired brightness and contrast, whereas, using Photoshop, gave me more control and experimentation.

Personally, I prefer the desaturated versions of my selected photographs. This is because, the colours that are present within each shoot, vary, therefore enhances the disjointed effect that I wanted to achieve.
If I were to do another surreal project, similar to this, I would consider basing my project solely on using the dark room for my photographs.