Sara Witek

My EJournal - University Of Westminster

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Photography Major Project 1 - Pilot + Major Project Expected Total Amount Spent

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Photography Major Project 1 - Major Project Budget Plan

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Photography Major Project 1 - Pilot Project Money Spent

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Photography Major Project 1 - Time Plan

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Photography Major Project 1 - Research Report

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Photography Major Project 1 - Major Project Proposal

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Photography Major Project 1 - Technical/Logistical Information

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Photography Major Project 1 - Extra Research; Alina Rudya ‘Pripyat Mon Amour’

Aline Rudya is a photographer, who’s home town is Chernobyl. At the age of 26 she revisited her hometown for the first time and had an emotional return. Alina’s book touches upon the theme of home with personal poignancy, as she seeks a way back to Prypyat.

Her photographs document people who like her, have been evacuated from Prypat in April 1986 after the Chernobyl Disaster. Alina was only 1 year old when her and her family have been evacuated. Her father who was 28 at the time , worked as an engineer at the plant on the night of the accident and died a few years later due to his health being affected by the constant exposure to radiation.

Alina’s desires and passions arised from the ruins of Chernobyl. Half of her project is based on self portraiture and half is based on other peoples lives.

Her photographs inspire me and show me a different approach to a project about Chernobyl, that not only is about the environment but also about people and how their lives have been affected.

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Photography Major Project 1 - Extra Research; Adam Orzechowski ‘The Chernobyl Project’

Adam Orzechowski is a photographer who has experienced the Chernobyl disaster while only being 7 years old. When he grew up, he decided to create a project about it, showing how the nature adapted to the area of such a catastrophe.

On his website he stated “The Chernobyl Project portrays vision of an involutary park where flora and fauna slowly and gradually claim back its natural habitat. Through terrible human technological error this radioactive urban wasteland has become a safe zone for nature.”

I find this work inspiring and very abstract, as there are not many photographs of Chernobyl at night time. It makes me feel emotional because of how happy the animals looks and the fact that they have their own peace now with no civilisation interupting their habitats. I love how please to the eye these photographs are because of the blue and black tones.

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Photography Major Project 1 - Interview with my Mum

My mum was born in 1974, meaning she was around 12 years old when the Chernobyl disaster happened. In Poland, we live right by the Ukrainian boarder which means when the Nuclear Reactor exploded, my area was affected. I asked my mum what she remembers and this is what she said;

“When the explosion happened at Chernobyl, I was around 12 years old. As a child, you dont really pay attention to the news. But on this day, 1st of May, it was a huge shock to us all when we found out about the explosion, a few days after. The 1st of May is a day off work and school for Poles, everyone was supposed to be happy because its a bank holiday. But after the explosion, after school finished, instead of going for ice cream, my mum took us to the doctors where we had to drink this disgusting brown thick liquid which was Iodine.

The news about the explosion only got to us Poles a few days after the distaster. Before that time, I was walking home from school and I was wondering why the leaves had some yellow dust on them. Not knowing about the disaster, I started touching the dust because I was curious, it later turned out to be radioactive fallout which had been carried to us by the wind. The rain washed this dust away but for the next few days, we all lived without knowing much.

As each day passed, we got told more and more information . It was very tragic event. To this day I still cant believe that this horrible news was kept from us for so many days, and because of this, so many people died, got ill or had to evacuate home.”

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Photography Major Project 1 - Project Presentation

As part of the module, I had to create a presentation talking about my idea for my Major Project, and present it to my group. This is my presentation.

Along with my salt prints, experiments and photos I took in Chernobyl.

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Photography Major Project 1 - Making the Salt Prints for my Pilot Project

When I was ready, I began to spend time in the salt print dark rooms experimenting with my pilot project salt prints and trying to achieve the chemical reactions I am aiming for. These are some of my prints that I came up with. 4 of them are beinge used for my Pilot Project. Those being Photo number 2, 6, 8 and 9. To create the chemical looking reactions, I mainly used lemon juice and didnt dry the silver nitrate properly.

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Photography Major Project 1 - Editing for Salt Prints

To be able to create my salt prints for my Pilot Project, I had to go through a process of making large negatives from my colour photos.

This means that I had to turn my 300dpi images black and white, invert them, flip them and add the salt print curve. I then printed them on Acetate and they were ready to be used in the dark rooms.

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Photography Major Project 1 - Cropping Experiment

When I got back from Chernobyl, I began to play around with cropping my images into square format to see what the looked like. I did not like the results because not all of my images were framed in a way which I could cropp them. So I decided to keep them in original size and print them in A4. Here are some examples of the cropped images.

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Photography Major Project 1 - Gallery Visit in Ukraine: Part 4

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Photography Major Project 1 - Gallery Visit in Ukraine: Part 3

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Photography Major Project 1 - Gallery Visit in Ukraine: Part 2