Semester 3 - Images: Film, why Film?
Almost from the beginning of starting this New Topographical final major project, I’ve felt film to be a part of this, why is that I wonder now?
Maybe because this work is going back to a root of my practice when film was all there was to use to photograph, today film is seen as more considered way of image making, that when you use film to make an image it’s somehow more than when you snap a digital image, the forethought and historical knowledge you must have to make this image is somehow translated into the image, it felt the right medium to use to communicate the ideas behind the work and how I’d like them to be seen
But as that great quote says:
“…from light comes darkness and from darkness comes light..”
I will also need to underline this thought process by the use of digital imagery,
Oh and continuing along that path I better put in something that’s between the two……Polaroid? An instant film that is the bridge between the affects and process of film and the instantaneity of the digital medium.
For my film I have used the three classic mediums of black and white film, colour transparency and colour negative. These have been used to show how the look and feel of the image play a major part in it’s coding and decoding as well as its acceptance, colour transparencies just look the business, maybe i could have used larger format but that process detracts away from the NT in my view. I could have also used wet plate collodion or other currently “trendy” techniques that are way too prevalent at the moment but feel that this is a step too far along the technique as process as product pathway, then the medium is really taking over the work and for what reason? At the current guise most will people will view this work on a screen, so if I want to include these techniques, I can always use a filter in lightroom/Photoshop to achieve the desired effect…
Moving onto Digital I’ve used three techniques of how i use the diogital medium at the moment, first up is the digital “polaroid” something I have used when a light meter isn’t available by setting the digital camera to the same settings as the film camera you can get a rough estimate of what the film image will look like, this image is taken without much consideration for the subject apart from pointing on the right direction and snapping then the result is analysed for the technical, with the main viewpoint being how will this translate into film?
Second is more structured digital as in the waiting for the decisive moment to construct an image that can be viewed as a finial piece of work, looking at the back of the screen translating that image into a final piece.
Thirdly I used my iPhone in portrait mode to snap a shot while I was taking black and white images, this is purely a record of what was seen from the top of the film camera and gained me many looks as to why I was shooting in this way..
So I’m ending up with 7 shots of the same(ish) viewpoint, not sure how this will translate into the work but it’s an interesting idea to explore about the nature of the photographic medium, how you carry out photographic projects, topographically how we look at spaces and what is contained in these spaces.
Does the choosing of the tool of communication influence the result or vice versa, does the tool of communication matter when the work will be solely viewed on a screen?
Input // Output // affect // effect