#gsa4

[martynamazworkbook]

Hit and miss trips, learning waves

#103

After getting the equipment for the spring break on Wednesday, 20th March, I went out Friday night to Bowling to see if I could photograph the river bed in the evening. I thought I’d be a good idea as I had mixed results photographing in the morning, due to the rising sun and the constantly changing light conditions. I took a train and got to the site, while it was still light (last light), however as I found out, the gates to the marina where closed already. There was no one to ask about this so I assume that they are still in the winter mode and close for the sunset. 

Nevertheless, I attempted to get to the marina from the side of the train station. There is an ‘unofficial’ path (mostly for foxes, quite narrow, on the side of the water, running along the railway tracks) and I braved it to the point of the fence that has a ‘hole’ in it. The path is not the easiest to go through, mainly due to the jaggy plants that keep catching on to one’s clothes. My jacket is not too bad, but I wished I had more ‘sleek’ coverings on my legs, as I endured quite a few thorns... I had to use a torch from my phone as the plants are on all levels - body and eyes! Yikes. I remembered the jaggy thorns in the quarries. I guess I’m drawn to them :D The other obstacles that were even more dangerous were plastic bottles. They are horrendous on the path, because you just slide on them and it’s easy to fall, and the only thing to hold on to are the jaggy plants! It was a tough walk but I made it to the place where I had the best opportunities for pictures. I set up the camera but it was quite dark by that time. The lowest tide was just before 7pm, I must have set up around 8pm. Unfortunately, when I tried to meter the shot I set the camera for, the light meter showed ERR. I tried using my cycle light to shine on the spot I wanted to shoot, but the meter wouldn’t work. I guess it was too dark for it to see anything. What a lesson! Nevertheless, since I had all set up, well apart from being sure of the focus, I really couldn’t see much in the ground glass, I took a couple of around 1min30sec exposures. I say around because I had to hold the exposure button as I don’t have a cable release and I set up my phone alarm for 1min. Altogether I think the two exposures were about 1.5 min. I’ll be able to process them on Tuesday. 

As a side note, I felt brave that night and took one of the stones I photographed a few weeks back, with me home. I will perhaps see how it looks like submerged in water, as per Nadav Kander post earlier on here. 

Another trip I went to was on Saturday. This time I thought I’d go to Darnley as it was supposed to be a sunny day. I thought I’d have quite a good few hours shooting and should be able to practice the zone system I was reading about in Ansel Adam’s books on Thursday.  Unfortunately, that was a miss as well. The levels of water were so low, there was nothing for me to shoot really. Not as I imagined my shots to be. I didn’t want to give up as it was a bit of a cycle, so I played with my infrared camera, trying to ‘see’ anything interesting. I noticed those interesting hair like textures on the water again. They are the effect of sun kissing the surface of the water. The result looks like surface tension, like hair, like something electrical, magical. I decided that since that is the only thing I can see, I’d try to photograph that. I set up the camera on the tripod and I think I spent about half an hour trying my best to find the place I wanted to shoot in focus. Somehow I had troubles finding the focus, so I struggled with the heavy camera raising it on the tripod higher and higher. I brought a couple of stones from the stream, to stand on, so that I could see the ground glass, to find the focus. I found the black cloth very helpful in seeing the image on the ground glass. However, my tripod was not strong enough to keep the camera still in place, it kept falling down so I abandoned the idea. As I was putting the camera down, still on the tripod, I suddenly found the shot I visualised in focus. I quickly tried to measure the light and find appropriate exposure settings and I did take one shot, but I think the sun was gone from the place so I’m rather expecting a black image only. We’ll see. 

I also went to Pollok Park Thursday afternoon, as the rain stopped and the sun came out for a few hours. It was a very pleasant trip, I saw some fishermen in the river. I took about 12 exposures but man was that hard! I don’t have a clue if I’ve got any usable exposures. The meter was jumping with the readings, showing me exposures between 0.7 sec to even 180th of a second. Mental! So much for me trying to learn the Zone system... The images I took were mostly guessed...Again, I’ll see on Tuesday if there’s anything there...

Well, try again! :]

I don’t give up. I think this is just the way I am learning about the landscape. This is a journey of discovery. One can’t learn everything in an instant, in one day. It takes time to experience, to go through lessons, to analyse the results, or even the lack of them. I still enjoy the process. I find ‘failures’ valuable. They help me gather the knowledge I need to get better at understanding the cyclicality of the organic environment. It is not something I can control, it is something I visit and observe, take notes and learn from that. 

[martynamazworkbook]

SPOTTING / spot healing brush

After the toned prints dried I flattened them in a hot press and following guidance for Alan, my technician, I started to spot them.

I was quite fearful of making a bad job but I actually found the process really engaging. The dry area in the fine art department was ideal for this quiet task and I quickly realised that it wasn't that scary.

I found the grey areas and white the easiest to match tonally, with black areas needing a more careful approach. The prints are far better and way more presentable after this exercise. I spent about 5 hours spotting and covered 6 prints. Some needed only a couple of licks of the ink, whereas others took more careful spit healing

I'm really enjoying all the steps of creating fine art prints. They are all very challenging but also quite rewarding. I'd like that I could make a living, at least for some time or some amount of my weeks (e.g. part-time job) working with analogue photography. A dream job.

[martynamazworkbook]

#33

So I played a bit with the information that I’d see fit to be included on the back of my prints. I don’t have a logo so I thought that my name could stand out. I’d include the title of the work below my name and so I thought it might look good with my name and the title in one box. This would suggest the hierarchy of the information. I also thought that the box could go through my name that contains few A’s and the Z that originally has got a dash above it. I wondered if I’d add this Polish sign in my name. I think that wouldn’t make a difference, could confuse things and be awkward in printing outside of Poland as it’s a special character. I am concerned a bit that, although visually and conceptually it makes sense, the box scoring my name could be confusing and considered a mistake to others than me. 

I, therefore, think that the two designs on the right-hand side are best. I’ll print them and fill them in for a print and put on the back of the darkroom prints that I already have, to try for size and visual impact. 

The only thing I’m unsure of is the inclusion or exclusion of any contact details. The address and telephone number can be the same till the rest of my days but hopefully will change. The website address is also something that may differ in years to come, especially that my Squarespace subscription will expire in October this year. I’m not sure if my website name of nenart.net does the trick for my current of future photography life. I think I could think of a better name, or even using my own. 

[martynamazworkbook]

Signing Your Photographs - [Photography Tips & Tricks]

In today’s episode we’ll talk about my process for Signing Fine Art Photography, creating Certificates of Authenticity and how I track my images. You can dow...

#115

I also looked at this vide of a surfer dude explaining more of a marketing approach to finalising/signing his artwork and it reminded me of the need to order business cards! I’ll add this to my TO DO list. 

[martynamazworkbook]

DARKROOM PROCESS & EXPERIENCE

#112

I think it’s good for me to take a little time to recap on the darkroom experience so far as I feel like I’ve been learning LOADS. 

I really like working in the darkroom and I’m as happy being there on my own as with others, providing that they are as ‘cultured’ as me ;) I’m happy to give and receive help at times but working on limited edition prints with limited resources calls for pristine conditions, methodological approach and clean environment. 

Normally during one day (darkroom opening hours are 9:30am - 4:30pm including prints washing time), I can make between 1 and 3 (final) prints of 8x10 or 16x20 size. It all depends on the working conditions (if anyone else is working at the same time and how independent/clean they are), my state of mind (very important!) and of course the quality of the negative I’m enlarging. 

The set up of the darkroom also depends on a few things. If I’m setting up from scratch, e.g. there’s no chemistry left from the previous day, it can take even around 2 hours before I can attempt my first test strip. If someone is already working then usually a solid half an hour is enough to set up the enlarger, easel and in general prep the area for printing. 

If I’m on my own in the darkroom the most difficult thing to do is finding the focus (grain) of the image on the plane of the easel (that is used to hold the paper in place and to create a printing area on the paper that it encloses). If the enlarger sits quite high, especially when the image is being cropped, my arm simply doesn’t reach the distance between the focus ring and the eyepiece used for focusing. I have been working on this task though, and hopefully have proven (through my prints) that, albeit super difficult, it can be achieved. 

The usual preparation of the working area in the darkroom includes: - safety gear on (gloves, glasses) - fill tray area (the basin) with 20C-22C water (a thermostat is provided) - wash trays and tongs to ensure no cross-contamination will occur - prepare chemistry (6 ltr for each tray): developer (GSA darkroom uses Ilford PQ Universal with the dilution of 1:9), stop bath (stock), 2 x tray with fixer (Ilford Hypam, dilution 1:9), a tray with water for storing prints before the wash - put safety lights on (also switches ventilation on), switch off white lights - close the doors

Next, I follow these steps to prepare enlarger for printing selected negative: - chose and clean the appropriate lens (I’ve been working with 150mm used for 5x4 negatives) - ensure the bulb and timer are working correctly and that you know how to use the timer as some are quite different and can be quite confusing - take out the condenser out of the compartment (again this is for enlargements from 5x4 negatives) - clean the negative as much as possible of any superficial marks; I got a tip from my tutor Andy that a bit of clean bluetack will pick up the tiny tiny dust particles and it worked like magic! - load the negative into the holder and then into the enlarger - use various knobs and rings to arrive at the correct position of the head of the enlarger for the appropriate crop/sizing - use focus finder to find grain on the easel or an old sheet of paper (lens aperture fully open) - close aperture down to whatever you know your prints will be good to print at (I’ve been mostly printing at f11 and f16 - this gave me enough of time to do tiny adjustments to the prints) - prepare a set of filters - prepare a clean piece of glass to use for test strips (I actually found out about this quite late and used tape to hold the bits of paper in place; glass - fantastic idea!) - prepare cardboard for covering parts of the test strips

Once these steps have been accomplished one is ready to begin the process of enlarging the negative. 

[martynamazworkbook]

DARKROOM

#110

So far I’ve been quite ok working in the darkroom. I started printing 8 x 10 inches to get a feel for the negatives. This allows me to figure out any dodging, burning as well as dust and scratches corrections that will be necessary for the bigger prints. 

[martynamazworkbook]

#108

I’ve processed the sheets from Linn Park today (8th April). I’m nicely surprised that my negatives are readable, that they came out. However, the ‘vortex’ image didn’t come out printable I think. There’s two and they’re actually alright but there’s a stick at the top in the frame and I think it ruins both of the shots. They’re too tight too, but as mentioned earlier, that’s all I could do from the spot I was at. 

I think the two shots with ‘weird’ textures in are quite interesting, the other two with just the water flow are super boring so I’m disregarding them. 

[martynamazworkbook]

TRIP TO LINN PARK

#107

I decided to go to another place I know of that is fairly close to where I stay, Linn Park. I had visited the place a few times over the summer and remembered that the White Cart water was rocky in places, having a rocky bed. I thought that perhaps I could find an appropriate subject to photograph. 

The day was overcast and it started raining while I was on site. It was a fairly pleasant rain though, more like a summer rain so it didn’t disturb me much. I did have to cover the equipment to protect it from the water and being in the landscape...it got quite muddy so the dirt was getting everywhere. Nevertheless, as soon as I got to the spot I had in mind I noticed a wonderful vortex shaped water pattern that was made by the water flowing over the big flat stones and collapsing. As usual, I took a few initial shots with my infrared camera to see the effect and play with the shutter speed that I would then translate into the large format camera.

Unfortunately, the spot I was at was the stream bank and it was wet so it was really slidey and I was really wary of the equipment being at risk of ending up damaged or in water, even though it was shallow. 

This image actually follows a documentary on water I had watched the previous night (see next post). This is just a little proof (rather than a coincidence) of what I’d like to express in my book. The power of thought and focus. Something that is on my mind manifests almost instantly. The less resistance we have towards the thought, the more likely it will show up and the quicker it will. 

I obviously tried to ‘recreate’ the shot using the large format camera I had with me but it proved very difficult. For one, the tripod I have is my favourite as it’s lightweight enough for me to take it for travels, but it’s not strong enough to hold the Wista in place when I need it to be tilted on the head (rather than sitting straight or pointing downwards). Another thing was that due to the very uneven, rocky, surface I couldn’t find the right position for the camera to take in the ‘vortex’ but not its environment, or a tree that was fallen just by it. With the infrared, I could just handhold it and come quite close. With the tripod, I had to have the surface to put it on. I tried and adjusted the legs, the camera for about 45 min and took a couple of shots but I have a feeling that I couldn’t reproduce what I took with the IR Fujifilm. We’ll see. 

I then wandered off to take a loop around the park, along the White Cart Water. I stumbled upon a path leading down to the stream on the other side of the stream. I went down it out of curiosity and discovered a place that had some remains of a building. The remnants of the architecture extended over the water so that while standing on it I could look down directly on the stream. There were these cascades of water flushing down energetically. Again I took a few shots with the IR camera and they were super pleasing. At the time I thought the water looked like fire, like flames, especially that the IR gives the water orange/red/magenta tint. 

I tried to recreate at least one shot but again, having the camera on a tripod and no assistance (someone to hold me while I hang out from the bit I was on) I was only able to point the camera to the spots I wanted to photograph. I took one exposure and then tried to lay the tripod down and sit on it while the camera was hanging off the edge. Very stressful... :D The trouble here was that I had to set the aperture dial to the lowest so that I could focus the shot, but since I couldn’t see the dial, I could only reach it with my fingers, therefore I didn't have much control, only by the estimation,  as to what aperture I was setting the camera for. The shutter speed I had set up prior to ‘sitting’ on the tripod. 

I don’t think I was successful in getting any good or interesting shots but I’ll process the film and will see. 

Some of the IR shots are quite spectacular and I wish I could repeat them on the 5x4 camera. One thing would be different though as the IR waves pick up things that the normal camera doesn’t. It usually shows much more than a standard camera so, for example, the rocks over which the water flows are usually not visible on the negatives but I can see them in the IR shots.