alice & her cameras

Preview of Photocopy Animation

2012-03-04T10:45:00.003-08:00

At the moment I'm working on making an animation with photocopied self portraits. There are 26 images, photocopied between six and twelve times each. I'm currently scanning all of them and then I'll start editing them together. Obviously that's going to take me a while, so I thought I'd upload a few images of what I've done so far.

As you can see, these images have a very different mood to them. Usually I try to have an 'indifferent' facial expression, but with the mood I was in leading up to this shoot that just wasn't going to happen. I decided to embrace it, and did a variety of awkward, unnatural poses by tensing my shoulders and tilting my neck. I thought that if I was feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, I should try to look uncomfortable in the images.

I've been thinking of making an animation with some photocopies for a while, but when I looked back at the results of the shoot I knew that it would work really well with these images. Obviously I'll upload it as soon as I'm done.

Smiling

2012-02-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

Photocopies of self portrait taken with Canon 5D mki

The best thing about bad moods is that they always fade. I've had a rough week, but I'm starting to feel better. I've realised that sometimes people don't turn out to be who you thought they were going to be. I know this sounds like a fairly obvious discovery, but the moment I first thought that there's no point being bothered by bad people, I immediately started to feel better.

My hair and make up are different to what I'd usually go for in this series, but I wasn't really expecting to photograph myself when I took them, I just wanted to capture myself being happy.

Also: I've been buying a lot of old photographs online recently, so I'll start posting them when they arrive.

More Pinholes

2012-02-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

Diana+ and Kodak 400 Film
Using pinhole mode & bulb setting
(Ideally 100 ISO film would have been better, but I didn't have any.)

After reading about Francesca Woodman, I wanted to try out some self portraits where I interact with a location. Last week I went to visit my friend George, who lives near a lovely woodland area, so while I was there he helped me shoot a roll of 120 film on my Diana+ to test out my idea.

While using the pinhole mode, George would remove the lens cap for a few seconds while I moved my head around to create a Woodman-style blurred face.

I think the image above came out the best. There were a few marks on the film from the processing, and some that might have been caused by too much light entering the camera, so I can't use all the images on the roll. But here are another two that turned out alright.

Yesterday I did another photocopy shoot so I'll be posting that in the next few days, but this has made me think about location shots again, and possibly heading to the middle of nowhere with my SLR and self timer...

Pinholes & Polaroids

2012-02-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry that it's been so long since my last entry, we had a big review thing at university and I got caught up in panic about it, which is pretty unlike me. I guess I'm just nervous because this is my final year and I'll never get another chance to get a First (just in case you haven't noticed yet, I really want a First).

Shot using pinhole setting on Diana+

Anyway, my tutor said in my feedback that I need to experiment more. I was also told by several people to look at Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron. When I looked at Woodman's work I saw a lot of images done with a slow shutter speed, which reminded me of pinhole photography. My favourite thing about Cameron's images were the untidy details and textures when you looked really close at the images, which reminded me of the Impossible polaroids.

I did a few self portraits using the pinhole setting on my Diana+ and my Polaroid SX-70 camera. I would like to emphasise that these images are sketches, not final pieces, they're just ideas inspired by my feedback that I did in one afternoon. The Polaroids were fun to make but I don't think they look quite right for the project.

SX-70 Camera with Impossible Silver Shade 600 and a flash bar

The pinhole images are a little closer to what I want my images to look like, and you can certainly see the Woodman influence in them, however I would need to make something that looks a little more polished for my final piece.

Tomorrow I'm going to the library to do more research on female photographer's who do self portraits, maybe after that I'll have a clearer idea of what to do next.

Slow Portraits

2012-01-25T11:21:00.000-08:00

I did a shoot last week that went really well. I wanted to get a little more movement in my photocopies, as if my face was getting lost in the image, so I photographed myself at a shutter speed of one second and moved while the shutter was open. I varied the amount of movement over the shoot, but the ones that worked the best were the ones with a slight blur. Once the images were printed and ready to copy, I adjusted the copier to lower the contrast. I think this, combined with the slower shutter speeds make them look a like a painting.

I will keep uploading copies from this set to the Flickr album.

Self Portraits on Film

2012-01-19T02:56:00.000-08:00

I recently came up with an idea (possibly linked to my admiration of Duane Michals) of using the mirror in my bedroom as a prop for a self portrait. I think the main focus of my work during my third year of university will be my photocopied portraits, but I really wanted to shoot a roll of film to get back into the darkroom at university, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I shot the images using my Canon SLR with the self-timer function and a tripod, with Ilford HP5 400 film pushed to 800 ISO. I thought a mirror would be a good way to represent the multiple sides that people have, and how having so many sides to myself is confusing for my identity, which ties in to the main theme of my work.

They were shot in my bedroom so obviously they have a bit of clutter in the background - my Lomography posters and vision board are particularly noticeable but also my bookshelf and a bit of my unmade bed can be seen in the mirror reflections, too. I was thinking if I ever did something like this again that I could try putting another mirror behind me, which would add more reflections and remove the majority of the untidiness from the image.

I think as an afternoon experiment they've turned out pretty well. I like the grain on them and the feeling of 'imperfection' that film images tend to have.

More Projects Added to Website

2012-01-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

www.aliceandhercameras.co.uk

So instead of having a holiday over Christmas like everyone else, this is what I've been doing! I've added most of the stuff I did in second year and what I've done so far this year at university, as well as my holiday photographs in the new "travel" section.

You may have noticed that I've changed Mind Elsewhere to Happy. I'm not really sure where the project is going, so for now I'm focusing on my self portraits and leaving it as the images taken in Hope on their own, though I might come back to it later. Anyway, I hope you like it.

A few more Photocopies

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

As you may recall, I previously stated that I would be having a little break for a while to enjoy the holidays. I made it for four days before I went mad and remembered all the stuff I had to do. I started working on my website (which I aim to update before I go back to university next week) and editing the second self-portrait shoot I did a couple of weeks ago.

The thing I noticed about my first set of self portraits (that I didn't intend to photocopy when I originally took them) is that my eyes got lost fairly quickly, so I wore more make up in the second shoot, but it was still a minimal shoot in my attic with only natural light. The natural light was probably what annoyed me the most as I got a lot of shadow on my face, so when I go back to uni I'll try a studio shoot.

Once I'd made nine photocopies of the above image, I scanned them and put them together in a stop motion to see exactly how the image degrades when being photocopied. Details get more contrasty, then lighter, then lost, which I already knew, but what I hadn't noticed is that it also stretches my face. I think I could make other stop motions like this and it might be pretty interesting...

View the stop motion on Flickr.

I also tried another experiment this morning. I can't remember where exactly I got the idea from or why I wanted to do it, but I went to the Post Office and used their photo booth to get four passport style pictures. I really like photo booths, even though the one in the Post Office is fairly basic and you can only have the same pose for the four images.

Anyway, I scanned it when I got home at a very high resolution to enlarge it as much as possible. Then I printed it out on A4, and started photocopying it. The results are interesting, obviously I don't have as much control over them as I can't correct them in Photoshop or anything. They sort of remind me of posters of wanted criminals or missing people...

Original image

A few photocopies later...

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-01T05:29:00.000-08:00

Resolutions for my education/art:

1. Get a First.

2. Save enough money to do a Masters degree.

3. Learn how to make books.

Resolutions for my career:

4. Update my website (which I'm currently working on right now).

5. Blog more often.

6. Start selling prints on Etsy (which I've been meaning to do since 2009.)

Resolutions for my life/being a better person:

7. Go on holiday, unless this clashes with resolutions one and two. I'm thinking of going to Amsterdam or Italy if I'm on a budget, or to New York again if a pot of gold falls out of the sky.

8. Keep my bedroom (relatively) tidy.

9. At least attempt some kind of fitness regime, ie jogging or swimming.

10. Write daily detailed diary entries.

I hope you all had a lovely new year!

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

I'm having a short rest with my academic work over the holidays, but in the meantime, here's some instant photographs I took over Christmas.

Self Portraits & Photocopies

2011-12-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

While the weather's been so bad, I've been trying out a couple of indoor experiments to keep me occupied. One of them was self portraits. My original intention was to experiment with alternative processes, such as cyanotype or an argyrotype, but as they're fairly expensive and require a lot of sunlight (which, in Manchester in December is highly unlikely) I decided to try something else instead.

I started printing out my portrait on high quality semi-gloss paper, then I would photocopy it using budget plain paper on the lowest quality setting. Then I would photocopy the photocopy. Then photocopy that photocopy. This would continue until the details in my face became lost. For the final set, I scanned one of the photocopies onto my computer, halved the image size and then reprinted it to make it all pixelated. It's actually a pretty fun process.

Of course I could have just left the originals on their own, but I wanted the portraits to express self doubt, and I'm not really sure if they do that by themselves.

Original Image

First Photocopy

Also see the set on Flickr, where I will upload all the images.

Following the River Mersey

2011-12-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first sunny day we had here in Manchester in a long time, so I grabbed my 5D and hurried out to test an idea I'd been thinking about for 'Mind Elsewhere'. I'd been thinking about following train tracks, so I went to the River Mersey on the East Didsbury/Cheadle border. After a bit of walking the river runs parallel to a train line. As it turns out, you can't really see much of it, so I focused on following the river instead.

The idea came from feedback I'd been given for my two previous shoots. One friend had said that instead of trying to get lost in order to find myself, it looked more like I was already lost and trying to find a way out. This made me wonder if I should be going so far away. Another friend had said that it didn't look like I strayed from the tracks very often and that I should use that somehow. This gave me the idea of following the tracks. I was also considering using digital as I would like to make a book at some point, so it made sense to think about switching from film. I'd forgotten how much I missed digital, and how you can see screw-ups and fix them straight away, and how you can see the images the same day you took them, and how you can take hundreds of images without spending so much money on rolls of film... sigh...

It was a beautiful walk and it would be great to go there again and explore it further. Maybe I could follow it all the way from Stockport to Liverpool? According to Google Maps, it would only take me thirteen hours...

Summer Work

2011-12-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

As the weather has been so terrible over here for the last week or so I haven't done much of my 'Mind Elsewhere' project, so instead I've been focusing on scanning the many rolls of film I took over the summer. The university have been having issues with the C41 machine all term, so I've only been able to develop three rolls a week (that's the maximum they'll pay for until it's fixed). This means that I've only just got back the films that I took in France.

I have to be honest, I wasn't exactly in a huge rush to look at them, but I thought, 'What would Sophie Calle do?' and decided to bite the bullet and look at the damn things.

The most interesting are the ones I took just after we broke up. There's a huge field just behind the house, and I wondered around there for a few hours taking photographs of the pathway with my tiny Lomography LC-A+. We'd spilt up because we wanted to do different things, and now I was wondering where the hell I was going to go and what I was going to do with my life. I guess taking photos of the paths was symbolic of that. Even during a personal crisis, I still think about my damn art projects more than anything else.

As for the rest of the images, I'm thinking of burying them in the back garden. More on that story later.

New Mills

2011-12-02T07:14:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago I went on another trip for my university project (though I've only just finished developing them). This was the first time I'd been somewhere I haven't been before. I chose to go to New Mills, which I'd seen out of the window on my last trip to Hope. Beforehand, I finally decided to use my Canon SLR and 35mm film for the project. With that in mind, I hope to try out 6X9 medium format next year after I've practiced black and white a bit more.

I've been thinking about where else I could go for the project. I've always wanted to go to St Ives so that will probably be the final destination, as it's very expensive to get to. In the meantime, I think my next trip will be either Formby or Blackpool.

On the way there, I also shot a roll of film on my new Lomokino, but the stupid people developing it lost the negatives. I'll upload it if I ever find it.

Mini Newcastle

2011-11-30T06:02:00.001-08:00

Yesterday my course went on a trip to the Baltic in Newcastle to look at the Turner Prize exhibition. I bought my Fujfilm Instax Mini camera with me. The exhibition sucked so most of us wondered off fairly quickly and went exploring.

Me and my girlfriends went to the city centre to do a bit of shopping and stumbled across the Christmas Market. It was a bit like the Christmas Market in Manchester, except it looked less crowded (which is a good thing). I also loved the architecture, which reminded me of when I visited Paris a year ago.

I forgot how fun it is to use. I would have taken more photographs if it hadn't stated raining (I wasn't sure if the camera was waterproof or not and didn't want to find out the hard way. Eventually, when it started to really rain, we retreated to the pub.) As the film is significantly cheaper than Impossible film, I don't see why I can't use this camera more often for personal pictures.

As you can see, the last one didn't come out terribly well as it was starting to get dark at that point. Maybe one day, I'll treat myself and get the Instax Mini 50s...

Not knowing what camera to use is a common side effect of owning too many cameras.

2011-11-10T10:31:00.000-08:00

I've been putting up a lot of personal work recently but now that my course is in full swing I'll be concentrating on that until I graduate next summer. The main difference between my personal work and my degree work is that my degree work generally takes much longer, has more reasoning behind it, and I spend more time obsessing about the presentation.

Canon EOS 50 + 50mm f/1.8 lens

Kentmere black and white 400 ISO film

My project is still in the early stages, but my intention is to go on daytrips that gradually get further away from my house in an attempt to find myself. I will document the journey as well as the destination. At the moment it's about spending time alone and getting out of my comfort zone, but I know that the project may change and become more about the landscapes than about my personal growth.

I've been doing some practice shoots with various cameras. The first shoot I did was in Cheadle, with a TLR given to me by my friend, Jay. I was using a light meter app on my iPhone so I wasn't sure how accurate the exposures would be, but it worked perfectly.

Microcord TLR

Ilford HP5 400 ISO film

(Fun fact: While taking these photographs, I ran into a fox and thought it was going to kill me. Foxes do not attack people, but I didn't know that until I got home and told my sister about my ordeal.)

The second shoot was in Hope. I took my new Canon SLR (to replace my Granddad's that got the sticky shutter issue) and my Diana+. The exposures with the Canon were also very good, but the Diana+ is more limited so most of them were underexposed. However, I really like the blurring edges which works nicely with what I'm doing.

Canon EOS 50 + 50mm f/1.8 lens

Kentmere black and white 400 ISO film

Diana+

Ilford HP5 400 ISO film

As well as deciding what camera to use, I also want to use text in my work so I'll be spending a lot of time experimenting with that, as well as how to document the journey there. I used a HD camcorder on the way to Hope, but I also want to try out the new Lomokino... decisions, decisions...

Please welcome my newest member of the family...

2011-11-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

Taken with natural light with a Panasonic Lumix LX3

Isn't it beautiful? I've wanted an advanced Polaroid for ages but I couldn't justify the cost... then a few weeks ago I thought, screw it, and bought one anyway. This tends to be a reoccurring pattern when I buy cameras.

I've done a few quick scans of what I've taken so far. I've been interested in Polaroid still life for a while after looking at work by Andy Warhol and André Kertész. I got a close up lens at the same time as the camera which is a joy to use with the manual focusing, and it's made it a lot easier than when I was using my Supercolor 635CL - which is a lovely camera and all but the closest it will focus is 2ft.

Isn't the Impossible film getting better and better? I shot with First Flush back at the beginning of the year and this stuff is WAY better. The colours are beautiful with a nice retro feel to them. With FF, those crayons in the image above would have all come out pink. With Colour Shade, they're perfect. Maybe the white has come out a little creamy-beige, but it works. I really hope at some point they crack the light sensitivity problems they've been having so we don't have to cover the images up anymore like the original Polaroid film, but they're doing really well so far.

I think the key to successful Polaroid shots (especially with Impossible film) is to keep it simple. I try to have a few subtle colours in as few things as possible with a bright background, like my desk, or the figure taken in front of the window (inspired by Kertész). I kept the exposure in the middle - even though Impossible say you should put it at the darkest setting, I find that indoor shots should always be slightly overexposed. I also only shot in the middle of the day when the house was nice and bright as I didn't want to use the flash.

Lomography Redscale Film XR 50-200

2011-10-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

While I was in New York, I wanted to get images with a vintage/retro feel to them, which is why I only shot on film while I was there. One particular film that I was looking forward to getting developed was the Redscale film by Lomography. What makes this film so special is that shooting at different ISOs will give you different results. Shooting at ISO 200 will be mainly red and orange tones, and then ISO 50 will give more blues. You can change the ISO as many times as you like during the roll of film and it doesn't need any special treatment when you get it developed - it's just the regular C41 process.

I started the day at Central Park and shot at ISO 50. Some of them came out very orangey when there was a lot of contrast in the image, but some had the sepia hues I was expecting.

When I visited the Impossible Gallery (which is AWESOME), it started getting a little darker, so I increased to ISO 80. This gave a very nice red tint, but nothing too overwhelming.

When I got back to Brooklyn in the evening I went to ISO 200 as it was pretty dark by this point. These came out completely red, which I think works well for nightlife images.

Verdict: Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 is a great film to experiment with, and the red hues would work really well in personal photographs of friends and nights out, or of cities or still life. Just make sure you use it with a camera where you can manually control the ISO, or you'll miss half the fun.

Top Tip: If you're trying to get a vintage feel to your images on a low ISO, make sure you're shooting something with several different colours. When I was in the park, a lot of my shots were just of green trees and green grass, and as a result they were very red and orange. However my street shots came out a bit better because they had more variety in them.

View the rest of my New York stuff here.

Manchester United Shoot

2011-10-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a while to write about this, so sorry about that. For a while I wasn't sure if I was allowed to for legal reasons, then I forgot, then I remembered today when I was clearing out my memory card on my Canon 5D.

I did some assisting work for Kevin Cummins when he was photographing a Manchester United shoot for their sponsors. The first time it only involved six players and was for a Malaysian company that made noodles and crisps. The second shoot involved all the players and was therefore a bit more hectic. My job was to set up the lights before the shoots, hand props to the players, run around and get anything that Kevin wanted, and then put away all the lights afterwards. For the second shoot, I had to photograph Kevin taking photographs, which I'm quite glad I was asked to do because now I have evidence that I was actually there. The experience was invaluable and will definitely give me the skills (and confidence boost) if I get any more commercial offers.

I went PRO.

2011-10-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was trying to do some of my Dissertation this afternoon but I keep getting distracted by eBay so I thought I might as well just write a blog post instead. Today I went Pro on Flickr, after realising that only having 200 of my most recent images just isn't enough. This meant that I can now view every image I have ever uploaded, which starts midway through the 365 that I was doing while I was on Foundation.

Taken in January 2009 with a Canon 450D

I'm seriously thinking of getting short hair again after looking at this photo. I should also point out that I didn't have contact lenses at this point - I would just walk around blind out of sheer vanity.

I'd just got my Canon 450D (my first DSLR) and carried it around wherever I went. You know every group of friends has that one person who won't put their camera down and keeps snapping everyone? That was me. I was pretty dedicated to my 365, and to figuring out what most of the switches on my camera did. In those days, I would convert every image I took to black and white. I think adjusting colours on Photoshop just confused me.

Looking back on my 365, I can safely say that my photography is a lot better now because I take my time and think about what I'm doing and if it will actually look any good or not (probably due to my switch to analogue). However, there is the occasional gem, and it's nice to look back on images of my friends, family, first boyfriend, and all the self portraits I did.

It was roundabout this point that I was realising that I loved photography way more than painting, but of course you had to come to the studio four days a week. Photographing myself was really the only thing I could do (apart from developing black and white film) while I was there - though at one point, I did managed to convince my classmates to wear white masks. I think it was something to do with my project about missing people but I can't remember for sure.

If you want to see my 365, most of it is now viewable on Flickr.

Diana+ in Coney Island

2011-10-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

The majority of the time that I was in New York, I used my Granddad's 35mm Canon SLR (which, now that I look at the contact sheets, I think is developing the ever-so-common "sticky shutter" issue) but on the morning that we went to Coney Island, I knew that only one camera would do the trick - my Diana+.

Fujifilm and Lomography 400 ISO Film

Scanned with Epson V700

I love the distortion and over-saturated colours - I think it suits the location perfectly! Have a look at the rest on Flickr.

As for the rest of the photographs from New York, I'll be developing and uploading as many as I can while I'm doing my university work. If I run out of time (or paper), I will probably scan them at some point.

New York Contact Sheets

2011-10-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

So far this week I've been very busy in the university darkroom with my negatives from New York. Here are my contact sheets from the 35mm I shot there - they only took four hours...

I have made a set on flickr that I will be updating with prints, and the Diana+ shots I took on Coney Island.

Wall Street Protests

2011-10-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

I finally have some more photographs. The C41 machine at uni is still broken, so when I came back from New York I had to take them to PFD in Manchester to get them developed. Today I got them back - I scanned in the ones of the Wall Street protests as it's such a popular topic at the moment. As for the rest, I plan to visit the darkroom on Monday and pretty much stay there for the next month making prints from the eight rolls of film I took.

All taken with expired Fujifilm Pro 160S (I really should have used something with a higher ISO) with a Canon EOS 100 and 50mm f/1.8.

I'm pretty gutted about the C41 machine and not being able to do as much film work unless I want to pay for developing - on the other hand, this is an excellent excuse to do more Polaroid work this year. Every cloud and all that...

Guess who bought a scanner?

2011-09-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry that it's been so long since my last post - I was waiting for uni to open so that I could process my rolls of film, but it turns out that the C-41 machine is broken, and when it is fixed it will be in such high demand that I can't see myself being able to develop my summer work until I get back from New York in mid October.

Though, if I'm perfectly honest, I'm not in a huge rush, as most of the stuff I took was in France... you know, that really awful holiday I went on where I spilt up with my boyfriend? Yeah. That holiday.

I do have something worth writing about, though - I finally got a film scanner. So even though I can't develop the films I took over the summer, I can still scan every single thing I've ever photographed since I started university to keep me occupied.

To try out my new plaything, I scanned some shots from my Diana+. I took the camera around the usual neglected parts of Manchester that I like to go to, which I think really suits the vignettes and blurs and stuff. I remember when I first got the Diana+ I struggled with it, but it's actually a great camera for the kind of thing I like to photograph. Plus it's incredibly light, therefore very suitable for my long walks.

View the collection on Flickr.

Look what I found!

2011-09-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

I was rummaging through the box of darkroom stuff I was given about a year and a half ago, when I found a box of slides. I didn't find what I was originally looking for (Stop bath) but I'm still pleased that I stumbled across them.

I don't have a scanner yet (I will when I get my next student loan!) so the only way I could look at them was to put them in my dad's slide projector. It's a small collection of eight slides of someone's holiday. I think this is the only one where you can't tell it was photographed on a wall. I will scan the rest in a few weeks.

A Perfectly Ordinary Walk

2011-09-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

I was a bit sick of being in the house, so I went for a walk around my neighbourhood with my Canon 5D and 50mm f/1.8 lens just for something to do. I didn't really have a particular objective in mind, but I ended up getting a lot of images of the plants and bushes by the side of the motorway next to my house.

It's a bit different to what I've been doing recently, but it does remind me of the sort of thing that I used to do when I got my Canon 450D (my first DSLR), as I loved the blur you could get on DSLRs that I hadn't been able to get on previous compact cameras.

I like to do this sort of thing every one in a while. It's quite refreshing when you're on a course that demands you have a reason for every picture you take, just to go out without a motive. Anyway it must have got my creativity going somehow, because when I got home I didn't stop working until dinner time. I did all my artist research and printed off about a million contact sheets for my coursework. I hope I'm this productive tomorrow.

Things

2011-08-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to go out and shoot today, but when I looked out of the window I knew it would be a waste of time. The sky was an annoying, overcast white with no detail.

I decided to bring my creativity indoors, and worked on an idea I've had for a little while now. It's called 'Things', and is about my possessions and my relationship with them. I think the idea came to me while looking at Andy Warhol's still life Polaroids (which inspired the use of Polaroid as well as grouping objects together), and the Burning House blog (which inspired the way it was shot).

Things that clutter up my desk.

My Latest Experiment

2011-08-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying out ideas for the 'Dreams' theme I've been dabbling with. Yesterday I came up with another way of combining myself with an image of clouds, using my dad's old slide projector - except I don't have any slides of clouds, so I settled for one of slides I took in Zurich.

I wanted to photograph myself in front of a projected image. To avoid the image projecting on to myself, (which looked a bit weird, like the edge of Zurich was cutting me in half or something) I had to hold up a light out-of-shot for the entire shoot.

I wanted to keep the background image as well as myself in focus, so I shot on a small aperture and thirty second exposure. As well as capturing a little movement, and being able to move the light a bit as well to even out the shadows, I also still had had time to move out of shot about ten seconds before image finished exposing, giving a ghost-like effect which I think works well within the theme.

I'm still not sure if this is quite 'right' yet. This project will probably require a lot more experimentation. However, I did really enjoy playing with the slide projector - it was a very interesting way of looking at images, and it's something that I will definitely have to go back to in the future.

The Family

2011-08-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was my Grandma's 80th birthday party. She'd asked me beforehand to take some photographs as a lot of family members who we don't see very often would be there.

I accepted the challenge, unaware of the difficulties that would lie ahead.

Like getting my cousins off their Nintendos.

Or stopping various family members (the men) making stupid faces.

Or stopping people from wondering off.

Eventually, I did get a good photograph of everyone not pulling a face, but my cousin was blinking so I had to Photoshop one of him not blinking on top of it.

My Granddad used to be the photographer at these sort of family gatherings, but he died when I was thirteen. When I was sixteen or seventeen I started to get interested in Photography myself. When I was nineteen I started my Photography degree, which was when Grandma gave me Granddad's camera, a Canon EOS 100 - which I still use from time to time.

And now for something completely different...

2011-08-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Today I've been very productive. I spilt up with my boyfriend while I was in France, and keeping busy has helped me stay positive.

I have a lot of ideas but today (as well as my dissertation) I've been focusing on an idea I got while looking on the Lomography Facebook page a little while ago. The theme was 'Dreams' and there were loads of submissions, Lomography cameras really are perfect for that sort of thing with their vignetting, blurring, cross-processing, etc. I wanted to make a series of images on the same theme, using myself as a model, as well as various locations and lots of clouds. I thought multiple exposures on my LC-A+ would do the job nicely.

The thing is - I already have about twelve rolls of film that I can't afford to get developed and I didn't want that total to get bigger, or to have to wait until the darkroom at uni opens again to see my results. So I decided to go digital, and merge the photographs together myself on Photoshop. This way I could get a rough draft of my idea instantly. Plus it was a hell of a lot easier to do self portraits with a digital camera on a tripod with a cable release, because I could keep checking to make sure I wasn't cropping my head off or anything (if I do continue this project on film, I will likely need an assistant to check through the viewfinder that I'm in the frame).

Doing things digitally also meant I got to flip some bits upside-down or reverse them, play with the colours more, and just have much more control in general. I still want to try this out with expired film and cross-processing and through multiple exposure and darkroom manipulation when I get back to university... but digital does seem to make more sense for a project like this.

Usually, I describe my work as 'Observational'. I observe other people, places I visit, and my own emotions. But right now I'm not very happy with the world... so I'm making up my own.

Zurich & Slide Film

2011-08-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

On my previous post with the photographs from my recent trip to Zurich, the film was sent to DS Colour Labs in Didsbury, who sent prints and a CD from four rolls of film and one slide film in three or four working days. Well done, DSCL - you get a gold star.

On my birthday, I shot a roll of slide film on a little boat trip that was prepaid for Jessops. That one roll has only just come back, and although I don't think I'll be using them again (because it doesn't look like they know how to use a scanner properly) I'm still happy to have my pictures back.

Have a look at the rest on my Flickr page.

Manchester

2011-08-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Some countries riot because they have corrupt leaders. Some countries go on protests when their taxes go up or when the government cuts funds to important things like healthcare.

Here in Manchester, people riot because they want a new pair of trainers.

It's pretty pathetic, really.

Some More Peel-apart Photos

2011-08-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

After my introduction to peel-apart cameras, I thought I would post some more images I've taken with my Polaroid Colorpack 100. These were taken in Edale, on a bright sunny day, which I think are the best conditions for this camera. I think I underexposed them a little but it doesn't matter too much.

After that, the film jammed up in the camera. That's what happens when you don't clean the rollers.

An Introduction to Peel-Apart Cameras and Film

2011-08-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

For those out there who love the idea of Polaroid but aren't keen on paying the high prices for the new Impossible films, it's a good idea to consider peel-apart cameras. These earlier Polaroid cameras are significantly cheaper for both the camera (mine cost £4) and the film. These cameras can seem a bit complicated at first, and I certainly messed up a lot of photos when I first got mine, but once you know what you're doing it's actually quite simple.

Then, you will have your image.

It may take a little practice, but it's worth it when you get the hang of it.

This is the first time I've written any sort of helpful guide, so let me know what you think.

Zurich & 35mm film

2011-07-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

I only took two cameras to Zurich with me. I had been planning on taking my LC-A+ and doing some cross processing but it started playing up the week before, and despite their best effort Lomography Tech Support couldn't figure out what it was before I went. In the end I took my Olympus Trip 35, and my Granddad's Canon SLR - simply because both of them are incredibly reliable. Because of the size difference I ended up using the Trip more. It was a good chance to get to know the little metal camera and experiment with it - for example, I didn't know if it could do low light shots or not. Turns out it can if you keep the dial on f/2.8, but it will be grainy as hell, and not everything will come out. In a cool way!

Go to my FLICKR for more Zurich photos.

Coming soon: The slide roll on my birthday from the SLR, and the black and white shots that I will be developing in the darkroom.

Zurich

2011-07-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Zurich is the sixth most expensive city of the world. Did you know that? Me and Adam didn't when we booked our holiday there for my 21st birthday - fortunately we did find out a couple of months before we went so we had time to save up and mentally prepare ourselves.

However, the beautiful city (photos will be coming soon - I only shot on film so I'll have to wait to see how they turned out) did have one bargain for me, hidden on a corner near the apartment where we stayed. A photobooth!

For a mere three Swiss Francs, I could do four different poses, just like the vintage analogue booths. I hope one day when I'm on holiday I find one of those, apparently there are still a couple floating around Europe.

Well Dressed Men On Swings

2011-07-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't written in a while, but during the summer holidays I tend to go into hibernation mode. Anyway, I want to get back into the habit of being productive again, in time for my trip to Zurich next week where I plan to take lots of photographs.

I went to a wedding in May with my Olympus Trip. It was a schoolfriend of my boyfriend's, so I didn't know anyone there but the camera turned out to be a good conversation starter as quite a few of his mates are also into photography. I took a snap or two after the ceremony but the real fun started at the reception where we wondered around the ginormous luxury hotel - well, mainly outside the hotel.

I shot three and a half rolls of film. Unfortunately, the C41 machine at university broke about two weeks before the term ended and they were too cheap to fix it until the start of next term, so the half a roll that didn't get finished until a little will have to wait until September.

Ethos Exhibition

2011-05-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

My first exhibition :)

Shooting on a cameraphone

2011-04-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

"Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times... I just shoot at what interests me at that moment."

Elliott Erwitt

I imagine if you read my blog you have an interest in photography. Maybe you like analogue, maybe you like digital (or both!), but you probably make a habit of carrying a camera around with you all the time. You're probably the one in your group of friends who photographs everyone else, whether they like it or not. You're probably wondering if you spend too much money on cameras though you refuse to sell any of your rapidly growing collection because, as you always insist, they're all different. I know that's how you think, because that's how I think. My question to you guys is: how many of you use the camera on your phones?

A photo I took on my Blackberry, which although being a bit overblown in the highlights still has good colours.

When I'm going somewhere, I will always take a camera with me, as well as spare rolls of film or memory cards depending on the camera. But I have recently decided that I need a new phone in my life (I have a very short attention span with gadgets) and I'm checking out the camera specs on them just as much as the processor and available apps.

I wouldn't do a shoot for my Photography degree on a mobile phone, of course, but there's no denying that they're really useful. They're great for capturing the moment, because you'll always have it with you. If you are interested in photography seriously you'll probably have a "real" camera with you, too, but it might run out of battery while you're out of the house or something.

To me, a cameraphone is an emergency camera for scenarios similar to the above, but it can also be like a Polaroid camera was to professional photographers decades ago before digital kicked in, where you can instantly check lighting and colours. I also agree with some of the things David Bailey says about cameraphones on this article: "For me, a camera phone is a notebook or scanner, to remind me of something. If there's a book I want to buy, I'll take a quick picture of it. That's where small digital cameras work for me." I don't agree with some of the things he says later down the article, especially where he says that all digital pictures look the same, but you get the idea.

Whether you love them or hate them, you can't deny that there are a whole generation now documenting their lives on cameraphones. Not only that, but most of us depend on them and would feel lost without out access to texts, emails, the internet, social networking, and the other millions of things they can do. As a twenty year old, I am part of that generation.

I find myself using my camera on my Blackberry more and more, which is alright in terms of colour and tones, but I would like a few more options and the ability to choose where I focus. I am still on the hunt at the moment, and it would be great if I found something that could replace a small point and shoot in terms of quality. But not the Nokia N8, because it sucks.

Someone Else's Polaroids

2011-04-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I forgot to post these sooner - these are some of the collection of polaroids I bought on Etsy. The seller found them in a thrift store (or charity shop, as we call them here) in America. There are about twenty photos all together and according to some of the handwritten notes on the back they were taken in the eighties. It makes me miss the original polaroid film.

Anyway, I was thinking of turning them into a book to practice my bookmaking skills, in the style of a photo album. At the moment I want to call it Someone Else's Photographs.

Cross-Processing in Manchester

2011-04-10T02:41:00.001-07:00

I was really happy with the results of cross processing from my Olympus Trip so I decided to do it again for my university work. As much as I enjoy using the Olympus I decided to take a Canon 35mm SLR with me this time to get a more accurate exposure. The film I used is called Agfa Precisa (after a bit of Flickr research I discovered that this is the most highly recommended film for cross processing).

I was a little tired of Stockport after my polaroid project, and most of the places I really liked have now been closed to the public for one reason or another, so this time I went to Manchester city centre. It wasn't as interesting as I hoped it would be but I still shot a full roll of film and got a few good ones on there.

I developed them myself at university, which is probably the best thing about being a photography student apart from all the crazy, awesome people you meet. It struck me as I was waiting for the prints to come out of the machine that I would really miss having a colour darkroom after I graduated. I did set up my own wet black and white dark room in the cellar, which is nice but my equipment is very basic. I vowed to be completely devoted to the darkroom in third year and get the most out of it before we had to go our separate ways. Or maybe become a teaching assistant at MMU so I can keep using it.

First rolls from my new Olympus Trip

2011-03-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

I treated myself and bought a refurbished Olympus Trip 35 on eBay.

I threw in a roll of Kodak 200 slide film, and some cheapo Fujifilm 400 to test it out. I put both of them in the C-41 at uni so the slide film was cross-processed. This was also the first time I ever cross processed a roll of film! There's something crossed off my list of things to do before I'm 21 already! Basically I just kept the camera with me and snapped throughout my day with no particular brief.

I didn't always get the focusing bang-on because I haven't shot film for a while and am not used to manual focusing. The roll of slide film had pretty hit-and-miss results - slide film isn't as forgiving as regular film, so a couple of them were over exposed and there was no way to fix it. But now I know to be more careful next time.

That being said, the ones that came out well were brilliant. Here are some of my favourites:

Cross processed pictures:

I took a lot of the trees but this is the only one were the colours aren't too extreme. The rest were way more green.

I seriously wish I knew what this was about. I just saw them wondering around.

I like how when there isn't much light, the shadows go really red.

View on Flickr.

I will be doing more cross processing for my Hyde Road project, so look out for more soon!

21 Things I want to do before I'm 21

2011-03-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time reading other people's blogs and stuff on the internet, and I've seen a few Thirty things to do before I'm thirty lists popping up. I'm only twenty but I do like making lists and it sounds like fun, so I thought I'd make something similar for my 21st in July.

I tried to avoid putting borings things like clean bedroom or impossible things like go skydiving on the moon (to be honest, both seem highly unlikely). It took me a while to come up with this list but I think I'm happy with it.

1. Get more self portraits taken in a passport photo machine.

2. Make twenty-one playlists on my iPod.

3. Write a short story.

4. Get cracking with my super-secret project.

5. Do some cross processing! (E6 in a C-41 Machine)

6. Shoot some slide film and get it processed the proper (or expensive) way.

7. Paint something.

8. Read as many Sookie Stackhouse and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books as possible.

9. Learn a new skill, such as another language or how to play a musical instrument. Obviously I'm not going to be an expert by my birthday but I want to have made a start.

10. Get on a train/bus and not know where I'll end up.

11. Go on a road trip with my friends.

12. Photograph all the interesting bits in Stockport after 6pm.

13. Go to a beach.

14. Have a movie marathon!

15. Put £1,000 in my savings account.

16. Stay up until 6am.

17. Get up at 5am.

18. Buy something really expensive :D

19. Get more readers for this blog.

20. Start some kind of home business. (Like number 9, this is not something I can do overnight, but I want to have made a start or a plan or at least have a basic idea.)

21. Document an entire day from getting up to going to bed. Even if it turns out to be a really boring day.

I will document my progress on this blog. Wish me luck.

Why some disposable cameras are more expensive than others

2011-03-21T15:09:00.001-07:00

Well I tried to write my essay but it turns out that essays suck, so I'm going to write an article about disposable cameras instead.

While experimenting with disposables as part of my uni project I played around with a couple of different ones depending on when I needed them. I aimed to get the cheapest ones available but of course this wasn't always possible. My cameras cost £1.99 (online), £2.50 (in a corner shop) and £4 (in a supermarket). I didn't think there would be too much difference but there were a few things.

The first (and most obvious) thing I noticed was the build quality. The £1.99 ones I got online had flimsy flash switches, on one the flash didn't even work. The £4 model felt a little sturdier and had a simple flash switch that was ready pretty quickly.

Once I was done shooting, I went to the university darkroom to develop them. The next few things I noticed while I was putting the film in the C-41 machine so it isn't something the vast majority of my readers are going to be able to notice themselves.

To be able to develop the film from a disposable camera you must take the camera apart to get out the canister. You then take off the top part of the canister, get out the negatives and hang them up so you can put them in the machine. With a normal 35mm SLR this is quite simple but all the disposable cameras had a few complications. It took a while to get the roll of film out of the most expensive camera - it just didn't want to open. This isn't something that will bother a lot of you because most of you will get someone else to develop them, but it's worth noting incase any other photography students are reading this.

The cheaper cameras came apart far more easily as the only thing holding them together under the protective card was electrical tape. However the canisters were almost impossible to open! Normally you can just use a tool to break off the top, but I had to literally hack at these canisters with scissors and crack them open. This is not fun when you're in a pitch black room. The canister for the £4 model broke off just as easily as a normal film canister.

I noticed something else when I was hanging up the film to develop it. You can do three films at a time, and so today I developed a £2.50 one, a £4 one, and a roll of Kodak Portra from my SLR. The roll from the £4 one felt the same as the Kodak, but on the £2.50 one the film felt a lot thinner and filmsier. It was a bit like sellotape that wasn't sticky - that kind of feel.

So I left them to develop and came back later. The £2.50 film got a little stuck together which means two images on that roll have a tiny bit of the image missing. I'm not sure if that's my fault, or the machine's, or the film's.

Now on to the picture quality: I must point out here that all disposable cameras don't have the best image quality in the world. It's part of their charm. They have very limited focusing abilities - I think it's something like 1-3 metres for most of them so landscapes may be slightly out of focus. I've only scanned in my negatives at the moment but so far I'm not noticing very much difference in the texture detail between the cheaper and more expensive camera so far, though this might change if I went into the darkroom and made some images that way. I've noticed that the cheaper cameras vignette more when the flash used, but I personally quite like this. I've also noticed that the colours are different - the cheaper ones are more blue/grey - the weather was different on the shoots but even so the £4 was definitely had more browns and reds coming out.

Also, if you don't shoot on disposables much, it's worth pointing out that you really should be careful about getting your thumb on the corner of the lens. It's actually quite easy especially with the smaller cameras. It happened on quite a few of mine!

Disposable Scans

2011-03-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

As part of my project 'Around Hyde Road' for university, I also shot on three disposable cameras. The disposables were a reassuring back-up, especially if I went out to shoot and the weather turned out to be crap (Impossible polaroids work best in the sun, and I personally won't risk shooting on cloudy days as the film is so expensive).

I knew the results would be bad, but somehow I didn't think they would be this bad. Is it weird that I kind of like how terrible they look? How the flash burns out the highlights and leaves dark corners? How when zoomed in the texture detail is probably worse than my camera phone?

The scans are pretty flat - though I think they're supposed to be when you scan them so the photographer has control over tones - so I've done a bit of Photoshopping to create the effect I want.

See the complete set on my Flickr.

Around Hyde Road

2011-03-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to write an essay at the moment, but everything else in the entire world is more interesting so I'm going to post the polaroids I've taken for my university project 'Around Hyde Road'. I ordered ten packs of Impossible PUSH film and probably used three or four on this project, these are the best ones that I'll be using in my exhibition in May.

I'm not entirely sure what order they'll be in yet and I might edit the selection further but you get the idea.

I also like digitally editing polaroids to get really weird effects, go on my Flickr to see them.

For this project I've also done a lot of pictures on disposable cameras (which I'll be scanning on Sunday and possibly printing in the darkroom next week) and would like to experiment with cross-processing if I have enough time. If not, I can try it next term.

I love Polaroid, and the colour yellow.

2011-03-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I bought a Polaroid Job Pro camera from Etsy. I already own three polaroid cameras (well, two, one I'm permanently borrowing from my sister), but I had to have this one as well for the following reasons:

1. It has more settings than my sister's One 600.
2. Even with the postage costs from America to the UK, it was still about a third of the price of the refurbished ones that the Impossible Project are currently selling.
3. It's yellow.

It's coming from America so could take anywhere between a couple of weeks and a month to arrive. Hopefully by then most of the stuff I have to do for university will be out of the way so I'll be able to enjoy it properly :)