Part One: History of photography

The Role and Purpose of Photography.

As a modern medium photography is used in many different ways, for the first time it has social uses online for example where groups of friends or individuals can post pictures of themselves to reinforce their social status and friendship groups. Massive industries such as advertising and fashion use photography to persuade and infiltrate the every day worlds of the viewers. Personal expression has become an option as cameras have become more and more readily available and affordable to the masses. Photography is being used as a pleasurable leisure activity as well as the more controversial artistic routes that make people think and question the truth and reality in the photographs. All these different roles photography plays in our lives have been brought about by the changes in  technology, travel and printing techniques that our developing society provides.In the past photography was used primarily as a form of documentation; evidence. A concept brought about by the "forefathers of photography". Fox Talbot took what is allegedly the first photograph (shown below with a modern recreation).

Experimenting with photography as a document.

Dr Francis Galton had the idea of composite portraiture, the idea that certain types of people were identifiable through common facial features and he hoped his technique would aid medical diagnosis as well as criminology.

Galton took portraits of women in asylums (such as the one below) to compare and find a commonality between them so he could identify other mad women for example. he did the same with jews, criminals and people of ill health.

I found this idea particularly interesting and decided to experiment to see if i could find a common trait in people who like marmite. I framed my portraits and edited them to make them similar to Dr Galton's so there would be more of a connection.

I don't think there can be any discernible comparisons made and it is obvious why his technique fell into disuse but it was fun to document people in this way.

The result of my experiment:

However, the modern chair is a stark contrast to the old fashioned affect I was looking for. I decided to keep the original photographs but edit them in a different way. In our day and age everything is hyperrealistic and so I wanted to increase the saturation (and therefore the intensity of the colour), this gives a more modern, "larger than life" feel to the portraits.

Pinhole camera (Darkroom experiments).

To set up a pinhole camera you need to be in an entirely blacked out room. This is because light-sensitive paper is used to create an image. This photographic paper contains silver halide crystals which, when exposed to light, creates a small speck of metallic silver on the surface of each crystal. If this speck of silver contains approximately four or more atoms it can undergo development which turns the entire crystal into metallic silver. Therefore areas receiving larger amounts of light undergo the greatest development which results in the highest optical density, which we see as a dark colour or patch on a photograph.

After exposing the paper to light it has to be taken back into the dark room and put in a developer bath (with developer to water ratio of 1:3) for two and a half minutes. At this point the paper that has been exposed to light darkens; the longer the exposure, the more light there is and the darker the image will be. The image then has to go in the stop bath (ratio of 1:19) for half a minute to wash of excess developer and finally it needs to sit in fixer (1:4) for approximately four minutes to prevent any more light affecting the photo.

These experiments were good for giving a greater understanding of the way early photographers worked with pinhole cameras and reinforced my knowledge of shutter speed e.g. The longer the shutter speed or exposure time, the lighter it will be and there is a possibility it will be over exposed. The shorter the shutter speed, the less light there will be, this risks under exposure.

I also experimented with shadow prints (where an object blocks the light reaching the photographic paper, thus creating a "shadow" image) and really enjoyed seeing the outcomes:

Analysing images.

Visual elements: line, space, colour, tone (light and dark),shape (2D), form (3D), pattern (ordered repetition of an element), texture (surface).

The compostiton - structured/constructual viewpoint, layout, arrangement, contrasts and framing are all
features that lead your eye around an image.
The rule of thirds make an image pleasing to the eye, as does balance/harmony/symmetry.
The golden section (fibbonaci sequence, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34) was used in roman architecture for the "perfect" and pleasing form.

 "He emphasises the importance of proportions in beauty, and he is particularly concerned with the phenomenon of seeing. Some things, he says, need to be seen from a distance, others observed more closely, as the axis of vision also affects one's perception." 
-Norman Klassen, referring to Chaucer.

"Never let it be supposed that anyone can be a good painter if he does not clearly understand what he is attempting to do. He draws the bow in vain who has nowhere to point the arrow." 
-Leon Battista Alberti, 1435, the earliest known optical analysis of linear perspective.

As the role of perspective in the act of perceiving became increasingly important in the fifteenth century, the theory of perspective was expressed through the analogy of the icon of an arrow through the eye. However, it is often true that the emotional impact and instinctive feel of a photograph has a greater effect on the presentation of a photo than any visual contrast.