Darkroom Technique

I handed in my street photography assignment yesterday. Now I'm focusing on a project where I'm using stereotypes as my main focus. I'm also writing up a sketchbook which has all the darkroom experiments that we have done in it. Not alot of people know much about the darkroom and what can be made by experimenting with different techniques so I thought I'd post the experiments here. :] I'm going to go get my scanner so I can scan the piccies in.

In this image I printed through the plastic which I had drawn half a picture on. My friend drew the other half of the person and we printed them side by side.

I printed this image by placing the plastic onto some photography paper and then I put the glass on top and printed through it. This is the result, above.

Using the filters in the darkroom I experimented with the contrast. This is what using the filters does to an image:

Before and After

The below image was made by putting my fingertips into some developer and then pressing them onto photography paper, I then put the image into a tray of fix for five minutes and then into the wash for another 10 minutes.

Here are some more images from this experiment:

This next experiment is called sunlight printing. To do this, you put some flowers onto some photography paper and then place some glass over the top, you then leave it there for about ten minutes and then you put it into the fix for ten minutes.

These are just a few of the experiments I have done, I will post the rest tomorrow.

I'm watching CSI now then I'm gonna go bed.

Thanks for reading.

Toner and Food Colouring

Today at college we did a workshop which included sepia toning, blue toning, scanning a print into the computer and using photoshop to colour it, and using food colouring to selectively add colour to a black and white print. I scanned the images into the computer and saved them to my Pen Drive. However, due to technical problems I cant post the photoshopped image or the food colouring coloured image. I havent scanned the food colouring image in because it was still wet when I wanted to scan it.

The image I used was taken by my grandad about 45 years ago, and is a picture of my dad as a child.

Here is the blue toned image:

To blue tone this image I soaked the original print and then put it into a tray of blue toner. When the image was as blue as I liked, I removed it from the blue toner tray and put it into the sink to wash in the water. After ten minutes I used a drying machine with rollers to dry the image and above is the final result.

Here is the sepia toned image:

To sepia tone this image I put the original print into the soak tray, and then I put it into the bleach tray and took it out when the image was just starting to disappear. Then I put it into the sepia toner until the image reappeared as a sepia image. Finally, I put it into the sink to wash.

:D.

Another picture of a child that I have taken, is one of a girl called Grace who I have been photographing frequently since she was born. She is the child of my friends mum and was very tiny when I first started photographing her. This is one of my star images:

I have recently developed a keen interest of black and white photography, probably because I have started to work in the darkroom more and I have learnt more about the processes involved in printing an image. However, this picture was taken digitally and I used the levels tool in Photoshop to get the effect I wanted.

I have come to Plymouth for the weekend to spend time with my boyfriend who has moved here to go to university. As we were walking through the shopping centre we walked past an inclosed studio where photographers were photographing babies for the baby of the year competition. I can't wait until I set up my own business and can do things like this :). Also, when I was in town I picked up some white jeans that only cost me £1! bargain!

This is the end of today's post.
Thanks for reading!