Welcome to my blog!

My name is Emma Savage and I am a first year Photography student studying at Southampton Solent, England. 

This blog has been put together to document my experiences in Image Lab. Links to other websites and sources can be found in italics. At the bottom of this page you will find a bibliography listing journals and books.

Use the buttons "Newer Posts" and "Older Posts" to navigate.

The Archive and Labels can also be found at the bottom of this page if you would like to navigate through my blog that way. Posts will start from the newest entry first. Clicking on any of the images on this blog will open them in a new window and allow you to see bigger versions.

link to my personal photography blog

Unit Summary

Over the last eleven weeks I have learned about many techniques used in the photography world. Many of these techniques were completely new to me, such as the primer of making a wet collodion plate. I have made and used pinhole cameras in the past but not on such a large scale as we did this time. Using the studio gave me a brief but useful introduction into using studio lighting and equipment, something that I will find very important in the future. The many gallery visits I was able to experience here have also been very enlightening and inspirational to my work and I have become more aware of the importance of being able to critique and appreciate work of other artists and photographers. I had also never hung an exhibition before, and having to hang several as a group has helped me with this skill and learning the importance of accuracy and care with prints. If I was to continue with this unit, I would like to experiment further with studio lighting and making pinhole cameras or camera obscuras more similar to the artists I have researched.

Week Eleven: Time & the Image: Final Outcome

I decided to select this image as my final image that I will print out for the exhibition because there are more frames to the image than the previous. It is more reminiscent of a Muybridge work and I am really happy with the outcome. It reflects on the concept of time well because it captures movement and freezes it completely. By making my model wear a dress and keep her hair down, it allowed for the movement to be enforced even more from the free flowing of the material in the breeze. If I was to perfect this image I would be more accurate with the measurements of each frame and even try to make the horizons line up.

This photo will be printed to an A3 size with a border using an inkjet printer and will eventually be displayed in our gallery space along with everyone else's interpretations of Time & the Image and I really look forward to seeing what everyone else has made too.

Week Eleven: Time & the Image: Potential Final Images

Here is the outcome of my images. I used photoshop to convert the images into black and white and used cropping tools to put the images into a grid. 

I haven't yet decided which of the images I would like to use as a final outcome for printing.

Potential Final 1:

Moving Image form:

Potential Final 2:

Moving Image form:

I used an online gif maker called Gickr to put each image together and make a moving image similar to Muybridge's.

Week Ten: Time & the Image: Creating Final Outcome

Ultimately I decided to experiment with Eadweard Muybridge's technique of photographing people in motion and these stills even being used to create a moving image. I went home to Cornwall over the weekend and met with one of my friends who has modelled for me in the past. We went into a field and I took a series of photographs of her running towards my camera and i would capture her movement. Above is a contact sheet of the best results from that shoot and I will later edit and alter them into a sequence.

Week Ten: Time & the Image (Research): Eadweard Muybridge

One of the first people who came to mind when I thought about Time and the image was Eadweard Muybridge. Here he took a series of images of an ostrich in motion and these frames were then made to make a moving image. I would like to try this kind of technique as a potential idea for my own interpretation of time in the photograph.

Time & the Image: Experimentation: Part 2: Water

I also considered how I could represent time by freezing it and found water to be an effective way of achieving this. I met with a friend and used the water from a shower and a fast shutter speed to capture it. The water is freeze framed and the water droplets remeniscent of diamonds rather than water. I am really happy with the outcomes of the images.

The black and white images are particular favourites of mine. I used photoshop to convert my digital images into black and white and used the sharpen tool to define the water even more.

Time & the Image: Experimentation: Part 1: Old Objects

old and rusting: progression of time and wearing of an arga oven

This is the eskimo doll that was given to my mother when she lived in Canada as a child, she has since passed it onto me, I hold it very dear to me despite it being very worn and well loved.

These images were taken on a Canon EOS 400D

Week Ten: Time & the Image (Research)

Martin Newth

8 Hours

• night long shots record the movement of the sleeping figures
•  photographs were made using a custom build large format (10" x 8") camera 
• the following morning the negative was developed in the motel bathroom." 

I really like the use of long exposure in this series of images. The soft lights and movements show the peacefulness of sleep but at the same time subtly representing the intimacy of the couple. 

Week Ten: Time & the Image: Brainstorm

Potential Ideas

Capturing Movement:

One idea I could consider would be capturing people or objects in motion.

The Beatles Running from Fans on Platform by Robert Freeman

The above photo is by blogger Shui Tsang (blog link). I like the freeze frame of images but the single blurred movement of another, in this case their faces.

Another example: (photographer and source unknown)

Other ideas:

• Long Exposures
• Photographing decay, erosion, fading of something over time
• Freeze framing water
• Changing of the sky through day and night

Above: footage of a shooting star

Martin Klimas

Vincent Skoglund

Week Nine: Narrative: Donnie Darko "The Mad World Scene"

In the morning session of today we looked at a clip from the movie Donnie Darko to help us with the presentation of 'Narrative'. The above clip is similar to the extract viewed in class but not identical, as we watched a director's cut version that I couldn't find on YouTube. Here are some of the features I picked up on from the clip.

• Panorama shot connecting all the characters reacting and waking up from a dream
• The song 'Mad World' (Gary Jules) is played over the scene and additional sound is removed, the lyrics and somber mood of the song narrate it in a more emotional way than perhaps dialogue could.
• Body language of characters is important because of the lack of dialogue

Directors cut features:

• Girl and mother are filmed in a way that it could be freeze framed like a photograph
• Flashbacks: multiple images in a grid representing crazed disorganised thoughts

Week Nine: Image Processes: Exhibition

This week the group came together to print our Image Process sheets out on the ink jet printer to displayed in the exhibition space. Hanging the work required measuring out the wall and choosing appropriate spacing between each image. We also used a laser level to ensure that the images were all straight and in line. The ordering of each print had to be considered too, for example not putting a landcape or black and white image next to each other. Images were fixed to the wall using clear headed drawing pins, pinning the image just outside the corners without piercing the paper itself. 

I'm really happy with the final presentation of this exhibition, I think it is the most professional looking of all of the exhibitions we have hung for this module. 

My print discussing Alma Haser's "The Ventriloquist"

Week Eight: Image Process: Alma Haser

The Ventriloquist

Alma Haser

Exhibition Visit

Tim Walker 'Story Teller'

Somerset House, London

Somerset House Website
Tim Walker Official Website

"...And when everything comes together and you look through the viewfinder, there is a window to something magical. Something you have never seen." - Tim Walker

For the past five years Tim Walker has been one of my heroes of the photography world, I first came across one of his shoots in Vogue and have been obsessed ever since then. As a result I was overjoyed when I heard he would be exhibiting his photographs here and have visited the exhibition three times already. The exhibition spans twelve rooms, filled with photographs of different shapes, sizes and content, often partnered with the incredible props Walker uses in his shoots, a real treat for a fan like me to see with my own eyes. Works featured included images from his Mechanical Doll Series and The Wilder Shores. Photographs from inside the exhibition and further reviews of the exhibition can be seen here. My personal favourite photos from the Exhibition included Xiao Wen & Liu Wen As Samurai Nuns and Agyness Deyn in Doorway.

"Walker sees the world through a child's eyes- singularly beautiful, others primed for the monster under the bed." - words from the exhibition

Inside the gallery 

(image source)

Exhibition Visit

Jochem Hendricks

John Hansard Gallery, Southampton

Hansard Gallery Website

Jochem Hendrick Official Site

On Tuesday 6th November we visited the John Hansard Gallery to view the works of Jochem Hendricks. Exhibits featured 'Part-time Sculpture' a piece that would easily go unnoticed as being part of the exhibition, a Mazda MX5 parked outside the gallery. We then entered a room that appeared to be completely empty until you went up close to the wall and followed a long line of black human hair that traced all around the room, attached to an alluminium spool. Other exhibits included a series of aluminium and brass canvases shot with bullets, three synthetic diamonds in seperated cases, initially beautiful to look at but on later knowledge revealed to be made from the remains of canaries, budgarigars, a hen and a crow and even more grusome, a human leg. There were also viles and glass containers supposedly containing one million grains of sand and one thousand tears, a series of collapsed casts of Luxus Avatar's head, Eye Drawings and photographs from an old police archive. At a first glance, much of Hendricks work is aesthetically pleasing, but when you learn the back story behind the pieces of artwork, you immediately see them in a different and perhaps not so beautiful light. There is also a sense of believing and trust required with Hendricks work, the audience is being expected to trust what Hendricks has put in front of them as being true, such as the diamonds, even Hendricks himself wasn't present when the diamonds themselves were made, he can only trust what he has been told by their creators is true.

Week Seven: Digital Workshop: Visual Histories Exhibition

This week we had to hang the exhibition displaying our Visual Histories (Digital Workshop) exhibition. Firstly, everyones images had to be uploaded alongside each other on Photoshop and presented in a grid before being printed on a large scale printer.

After all three of the sheets were printed, a similar hanging process to the pinhole exhibition had to take place: using a laser light and tape measure to get the correct measurements and adding bull dog clips. These prints are alot more expensive than the pinhole prints were and we handled them with cotton gloves to cause no damage to the print. The final prints that hung were in a lot better condition showing that as a group we have all improved in handling prints (using gloves, rolling prints instead of carrying them flat and causing potential creases.)

Week Six: Digital Workshop: Final Outcome

After I uploaded my 10 images to Photoshop (CS6) I started merging layers together. I used a variety of tools on Photoshop to create my final outcome such as layer blending modes (darken, multiply etc.), crop tools, Lasso and finally altering the colours by using Channel Mixer, Color Balance and Selective Color as well as Curves. These are basic tools I have been using on Photoshop for the last few years but it was good to be able to experiment with them again. Overall I am quite happy with my final outcome and look forward to seeing what it looks like alongside the others.

Week Six: Digital Workshop (Photoshop)

This week's session involved using the images we took in the photo studios a couple of weeks back and uploading the images to photoshop to be merged together and create a collage. Each member of the group had to fit their images to an A2 size (420 x 594) and use their photoshop skills to merge each object together. The final outcome will be a series of tiles each expressing the identity of everyone on the photography course and this will be displayed in the exhibition space. 

Photos of my objects I took in the studio:

Week Five: Pinhole & Wet Collodion Exhibition

This week's image lab involved hanging our groups series of pinhole photographs and wet collodion plates in the exihibition space. For each of us it was the first time hanging an exhibition and having to deal with prints on a large scale. We were instructed on how to handle prints carefully to prevent them from being damaged or dinked however many of the prints were damaged at some point during this process. Alot of the prints would also have been damaged from being in the large black bins themselves, so it could be argued that their imperfections were appropriate to display the process of making that image, much like the uneven paper edges and curling of the paper. My preference however would be to have put clips on the bottom of the prints to keep them flat as I felt the curving of paper was distracting from the pinholes themselves. We used a laser light to make sure that the prints were straight and measured wear to hammer nails in which to place the bulldog clips to secure the prints to the wall. 

 

We also had to spray the back of the wet collodion plates black and did this using a black spray paint after making sure the plates were clean from dirt, spraying along the line of glass plates in horizontal streaks.

Final outcome of wet collodion plates:

Overall I really like how the plates look on the white wall, it's very symmetrical and crisp. I think I would also like to have see what the plates would have looked like with 3x4 rows rather than 2x6.

Week Four: Digital Workshop (Photo Studios)

This session was my first time working in a studio environment and using other digital equipment besides an SLR camera. We were required to use studio lighting and soft boxes to shine onto the surface area and object we were photographing (a collection of 10 personal objects that say something about our identity). We used the light meter to find out if the light was equally distributed on the photographing area. Our group also used a macro lens as we were using smaller objects. I really liked working in the studio environment and would like to do it again soon.

The Set Up:

Studio Lighting

Softboxes
Light Meter

Camera used: Canon 5D with macro lens

My Objects

Harajuku Lovers perfume bottle & box, Wallet, London Underground tube map, 'Don't Quit' poem, Glasses, Tiffant & co. bracelets, Pandora bracelet, 'The Fashion Book', Box Brownie, Dreamcatcher

My objects are relevent to my identity because of my strong interests in photography (box brownie), fashion (the book and jewellery), Asian culture (perfume) and London (tube map). The dreamcatcher is something I have had as a form of comfort since I was a young child and the poem called Don't Quit was given to me by my mother before I moved away from home.