Carl Sison » Photo 101

Detail

Carl Francis — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:15:32 +0000

For the second project in Photo 1A we were supposed to create 3 detail prints. I did the regular acorn and manhole cover but I wanted to experiment with something. Crunched on time I had a friend come over and pose for this one. Much of this photo was inspired but that really confusing ad by Reebok. I imagined all those bodyscapes I’ve seen in art galleries. Shooting this was actually pretty tough, it was a single lamp held by Byron. Luckily in black and white I didn’t have to worry about any white balance mess. To get the magnification I wanted I had to use my 85mm, but even still I couldn’t get close enough because of it’s minimum focusing distance. Btw, the depth of field of a 85mm f/1.4 @ mfd is SO thin. I had trouble getting the belly button in focus! This was the best of the couple of frames I shot, but I still had to cheat a little and crop it. Hope my prof doesn’t notice. Or read this. Damn.

In case you were wondering here is that silly Reebok commercial:

Some Tri-X for you

Carl Francis — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:07:31 +0000

Fresh from the scanner!

Carl Francis — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:28:40 +0000

Processing black and white film happens to be the easy part of the battle. It seems the bulge of the effort is getting in from the drying rack to the photo enlarger without amassing vicious particles of of dust and micro hair. Like seriously, was that a pubic hair? How did that even get there. Becomes incredibly irritating when I’m trying to produce a print for submission and a less than 1mm thick shirt fluff looks like its an inch long when blown up to 6×9! Yeah straight from a scanner I have that nifty clone and stamp tool, but once its been hit with light and dunked into that first tub it’s done. Making the matter so much more pensive, I don’t have an unlimited supply of enlarging paper. Thank goodness I purchased in bulk instead of picking some up from the local stores, making bank on students in dire need of classroom essentials. Shooting and developing was the fun exciting part. Enlarging is where I start sweating and hoping everything is in line before I press the run button. I find myself taking my can of air and microfiber cloth into the enlarging room, probably the wrong way to do it. Any tips from the film savvy?

First image was done to display shallow depth of field, second for high shutter speed and the third for kicks. I had better pictures for high shutter speed usage, but I liked that one.

My First Contact Sheet

Carl Francis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:18:46 +0000

Processing my first roll of Tri-X I found it comfortingly simple. Though, I still felt like it would have been so easy for me to just easily screw it up. In the darkroom I made my first contact sheet, fumbling over the reverse use of aperture on the enlarger and learning the wonderful usage of test strips. Still working on this first project, definitely excited.

Photography 1A

Carl Francis — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:20:14 +0000

This semester I decided to take Photography 1 because I really wanted to learn darkroom techniques. It’s interesting taking a step away from the LCD screen, I find myself out of habit chimping an imaginary screen. Using an iPhone lightmeter probably isn’t the best way to go about things either. Giselle came over today to help me out with my first project. I feel like a semester’s worth of Tri-X is going to have some sway on what you’ll be seeing in this blog. I’m going to be processing that first role of Tri-X this week and I’m actually a little nervous about it all. Paulo tagged along and snapped an action shot while we were standing out there in some serious skin biting cold.