Friday 15 January 2010

Jodie, Yashica and Numb Toes

The other day I went out to Blackpool Pleasure Beach to shoot yet more photos for my silence project. I realise I haven’t blogged about this project yet so just a little info: we have been asked to create a visual representation for ‘silence’. I have chosen to have my concept to do with the idea of ‘after the circus has left town/ When the fair has moved on. I chose this concept with it being winter and out of tourist season in Blackpool (where I’m from) when non of the attractions are running and the buzz of the summer has gone. It is something that Blackpool and its residents experience every year and I thought it was interesting and a nice personal side to take for this project. In response I have been visiting the Pleasure Beach and the closed down Pontins on Blackpools front and taking collections of photos whist there is no-one around giving the place an eerie quietness which doesn’t sit quite right with a garish environment like the Pleasure Beach.

On this occasion I took my wonderful friend Jodie G and a couple of cameras from her amazing vintage camera collection. I wanted to get photos which have a different an less precise effect than a digital camera. Mostly I wanted photos that looked old, fuzzy and a little sad, but that didn’t loose the brightness of the structures like the roller coasters. One of the cameras we took with us was a Yashica 124G-MAT Twin Lens Reflex (seen below with Jodie). I loved using this camera (props to Jodie for talking me through it and being patient with my pretty much non existent knowledge of cameras) mostly because it felt more real than using a digital. I realise that doesn’t make much sense, I guess there is something about having to manually load and wind on a film in a camera that is much more satisfying. 



Anyway I finally scanned in the negatives today for the film we shot and these are some of my favorites of the group.




I love these images, how they aren’t sharp or perfect. The flecks of white and the grain add to the feel of them and I think they are exactly what I was looking for. I have been using my other digital photographs in some photomontages but I don’t think I will use these for that. I think they are just nice as they are and something I can simply display to show I had a go at using a different technique. I definitely learnt something by trying this style of photography. I found I had to be more precise with the way I set up a shot, because it not so easy just to take ten more if that one wasn’t quite right. I sent the film through each process of development and finally got to learn how to use a negative scanner. Although it’s a much longer process than using a digital It feels like I’ve really accomplished something because it took more effort.

Thanks to yummy mummy for her wonderful help and patience x

4 comments:

  1. Fuck, those photos are amazing!

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  2. Negs look really good
    =D

    Hope hand in went well
    =]
    x

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  3. oh well thanks adam yeh im pleased with them
    couldnt have done it without miss jodies help
    x

    ReplyDelete