Photogram research
Photograms are photos taken without a camera, by interrupting light-sensitive paper with objects layered above it and exposing the paper to light. The areas that are covered will not develop darker tones which then is used to form the shapes in a negative format - much like how film works in a camera.
Christian Schad
Schad was a German painter and photographer. He worked in 1919 creating some of the earliest abstract art in photography. He would use the technique of (what would go on to be known as) photograms to cut unconventional or jagged boarders around the unidentifiable subjects. This was one of the first instances of camera-less photography in general art and after refining the technique he started calling them 'Schadographs' - made unique by the boarders which Schad said "to free them from the convention of a square".
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Man Ray
Man Ray was an American surrealist artist who while living in Paris, started developing his 'rayographs'. His photograms were made by placing household smaller objects like pins, coils and a lot of other circular objects over photosensitive paper and then exposing it to light. Some of these pictures have easy to identify subjects like an unravelled roll of film (picture on the left), but some of his other work show these objects taking abstract or harder to identify forms. Differing to Schad, his frames are commonly found in the aspect ratio of a portrait and they are all the same.
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Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Laszlo Moholy-Nayy was a Hungarian photographer who also worked as one of the most influential professors at the Bauhaus school for 6 years from 1923. Moholy-Nagy was described as being 'relentlessly experimental' due to his progression of the numerous arts he worked in. While at Bauhaus, he worked with his first wife to experiment with photograms as he proposed the use of scientific equipment like radiographs to make art. He was the artist who coined the term 'photogram', his work with the technique included lots of natural imagery like flower stems or leaves, and human figures such as faces or hands placed on photographic, light sensitive paper during exposure to unfiltered light. His work differs to Man Ray or Christian Schad, as he develops the image of ghostly traces of recognisable objects.
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Below is a short documentary on how Laszlo Moholy-Nagy produced his photograms and how he physically experimented manipulated the paper to display his own body parts. Maholy would apply substances to some of his work to see how the chemicals would interact with each other while developing his photograms, this could include the oils from his face, varnish or maybe sometimes graphite. The film also explores how his photograms aged and the damage that has done to them due to his techniques that he experimented with.
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Experiments in the darkroom
To respond to these artists, I went to the darkroom and used objects in my pockets and things I found around the room to create my photograms. This experiment was a challenge as the enlarger I used was new to me and I had to work out the correct aperture through trial an error. This meant I had numerous small strips of prints that were essentially pitch black with a barely visible silhouette. After a while I managed to make an A4 print with decent exposure and composition, though I can see where I want to go from here and what I need to change in the future to create clearer work.
Next, I worked with transparent objects while layering to use shades in my prints. I did four small pages around A6 size to test, over time I progressively changed the aperture and rearranging my composition each time until I achieved what I thought was my perfect blend of positive and negative space.
After my four trial experiments, I did a larger almost A4 sized print, using the transparent text and glass objects etc to create the shadows and shapes around the print. The bottom corners of the print are busy and complicated but I wish that I made the upper half of my print more interesting and used more transparent shapes, such as the top right corner which has too much dark space that is unused. I changed a lot of my objects and materials while making my smaller trails; like the bubble wrap I used to cover dull areas of my first couple prints that I didn't use towards the end - or the small metal spoon which I think creates a nice break in the negative space in an abstract shape. There are also subtle parts to this print that I had hoped would have a sharper effect on the print, the perfume bottle is too faded or grey-looking and the Christmas lights cover too little of an area to compared to the empty space at the top portion of the frame.
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Ruth Erdt
A Swedish photographer, Ruth Erdt used photograms to present the form of woman's bodies in strange poses that fill the frame. The process of Erdt's "Darkroom" series is different to what I have done in previous lessons as she used coloured paper that cannot be prepared in red light; meaning where I could have the filter on over the light to safety compose my photograms, Erdt would have to work in pitch black darkness. This means she cannot change these pictures when they are developing. Making these pictures made sight impossible and "transformed the photographer into a blind person" - with this context, we can assume that this process is a tedious one and to capture such clear shapes onto such a large print must have taken a lot of time and practice.
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Something that differs Erdt from the standard darkroom work that I've looked at is her use of colour. Typically, dark room prints are monochrome - black and white. But most of Erdt's large prints have hints of colour that bleed into the crips negative spaces. In some instances, the colour is scene at the shadows of the white silhouette but in others, the black areas are washed in pink or red or green hazes that barely effect the majority of the shapes printed.
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Large darkroom print
For my final photogram, I used an A3 sized piece of light sensitive paper and layered transparent printed images from the classroom and objects that would block light out completely. I tried to pick objects that were easily recognisable and could be found around a school as I felt it correlated to the pictures I used. I felt this first trial was too grey so I wanted to expose the paper to light for longer next time. The space in between the prints I layered around each other as this was a larger paper that I was used to using, I think I tried to fill the whole sheet and in doing so missed a lot of places where I could creatively use layers to effect shadows and exposure. I also wanted to get rid of the larger objects that just created empty space such as the old camera in the top right corner of my print. I exposed this picture for 6 seconds at an aperture of f/5.6. I wanted the picture to feel less bland and have more dynamic tones so I decided to leave the picture exposed for a few seconds more when I went to do my final print.
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I used some new negative acetate prints and added some more objects into the bottom left, I also composed this print in portrait format instead of landscape. I kept the aperture the same at f/5.6 but left the paper exposed for around 7 to 8 seconds instead of 6. I used my lanyard, glasses, someone else's keys and other objects that I found around the enlarger machine that I was using. In the centre of the print, the negatives overlap to block almost a clear square that fits in with the other larger things I layered above the acetate. I also like how in some of the acetate that I used, there are small shapes or objects that block the same light as these objects - I feel like this use of layers warps the perspective and can make my print look 3D or 2D depending on where you focus. I wish that some of these objects or prints were straighter but overall I'm happy with my composition and how the prints developed, although some of the chemicals did leave stains and marks on the lower half of my print while I was developing it, I think that the varying tone in the piece mask that imperfection well enough.
Cyanotype
Cyanotypes are an old and easy to produce method of photo printmaking, it was developed in 1402 and has consistently been famous for its use producing blueprints for architectural uses. The print is made by the chemicals which have been washed over the paper being exposed to natural or UV sunlight - when interrupted by a transparent negative placed in between the sun and the paper, it works similarly to a photograph in a dark room. When the negatives are removed and the print is exposed to bleach, the positive image will start to visualise on the paper, it's clearness and quality depending on the differing aspects of the previous process.
To make the negatives seen above, we printed two pictures on an A4 contact sheet, one was of natural lines in branches and one of man made lines (in artificial structures) like a bench or building. I took my pictures then printed them out, after that I photocopied them onto acetate which I then trimmed. To make the cyanotype, I layered my handmade negatives on top of each other and watched them rest in the sun for thirty minutes under a pane of glass to weigh them down and limit the amount they move. When I took my negatives off the print, I put it in a tray of bleach to speed up the oxidation process and develop the image printed onto the cyanotype for a few minutes. By the time I was happy with the tone and shape of my print, I washed the print in water to stop the bleach from effecting it and delicately placed it on a tiled wall to dry. The chemical liquid had not fully covered my paper, meaning that there were blank streaks already in the middle area of my print before I started to expose it to the UV light. I thought this would mean my print would not develop well but when I returned to wash the chemicals out with bleach and water, I think my dried print came out well despite the small blank portions close to the centre.
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Lumen Prints
A Lumen print is a printing process in which the light from the sun exposes the chemicals in the photosensitive paper creating various tones around the developed silhouette of flowers or small branches. We made these Lumen prints by layering collecting small flowers and little plants, composing them on glass pane and flatening it between the paper and the glass in a frame. We then left the frame facing up at a window, allowing the Silver Gelatin photographic paper to be exposed to the sunlight for just over a week.
This is a photographic process as the light is effecting the paper to create the silhouette of the objects blocking the areas covered when the sun hits - the chemicals inside the paper changes it's colour depending on the areas exposed, in the same way that a photogram will work with an enlarger machine or a cyanotype in a UV light box. Lumen prints were first used in the 1830s, in its simplest terms a photogram made with the sun's light instead of a machine inside a darkroom. |
Pinhole camera experiments
We made the pinhole camera by taking empty boxes like Pringles cans, iPhone packages or tubs of gum and painting the inside until it is pitch black. Then we cut a small square hole into one side and take a section of an aluminium can with a needle sized hole piercing. The aluminium piece needed to be sanded down then taped over to cover the hole. We then used folded pieces of duck tape to create a flap that can be opened and closed to expose the interior of the camera to exterior light. Once that was done we started to put small slips of light sensitive paper into the box and take them outside to expose for differing seconds.
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My first atempt didn't work nearly as well as I wanted it to. After evaluating what might have went wrong, I decided that I needed to create a wider distance between the shutter (pinhole) and the picture (light sensitive paper). I did this by wrapping masking tape around the edge of the bigger box part of my camera. In the darkroom, I would then place the paper - sensitive side facing upwards. Then I tape the smaller box halfway into the larger one to increase the distance the light travels inside the box.
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After that adjustment I made to the camera, each print I made was improved and covered more surface area with each attempt. I scanned these once they were developed and put them in photoshop to create a positive version of each image. To do this I put each picture into photoshop select "Image", "Adjustments" and then "Invert", or held "command" and "i". I would also change certain aspects of contrast in the last two pictures, making certain areas lighter or changing the exposure to make a whole image darker.
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This is my favourite of my experiment s because although my very last one was a fuller image, I had accidentally exposed the image to my hand as well (this is the case for my second image as well). Though this picture has slight spots and scratches on it, I think it produced the clearest, uninterrupted image. I also like the smaller details like the person walking on the concourse below where I was positioned which I had not intended to photograph, as well as the railing that my camera is set up leaning on; I didn't expect the detail in the tones on the metal to come out as well as it did.
research pinhole photographer