Some Experimentation

Recently I have been exploring that human concept called 'time'.
I have an old medium format camera, which I loaded with one piece of darkroom paper. I cut it to slightly larger than 6x6cm and taped it on the inside of the camera where film would otherwise sit. I then proceeded to take photographs over a period of weeks, of any moment where I was relaxed and not worrying about something, or I was worrying, of a moment that captured my eye, or my imagination. I took photographs of landscapes, of people, of my friends, the streets, buildings interiors, anything that I felt I wanted to photograph. I didn't try to calculate my exposure, because I was letting the photographs build up cumulatively over time. I have only taken this paper out of the camera at the end of the project. This photograph is almost the project itself, and it is something I can perhaps prepare for the degree show. I took the photographs by putting the camera on 'bulb' mode, setting the aperture to f22 and turning the focus ring using the distance guide on it, to have everything from 4.6 feet, all the way to near infinity in focus. I kept these same settings everytime I held the shutter open, I would open it for approximately half a second each time. I cant say how many individual exposures I made but around 30-40. I can see some definite moments in them, from really bright days. For example I can make out a crane in the center of the photograph. I did this in response to Michael Wesely's long exposures of New York. Instead of leaving a camera in one spot, I took it with me, for a personal look into my life. Instead of an objective look of New York moving and growing over a period of three years, it is a personal look into a few weeks in the life of Pete.

Here is my scan from the Hasselblad Flextite x5:

Here is my inverted photograph:

I am fairly pleased with how it came out. I like it as it has a strange effect that conjures up feeling of time passage. however I dislike that it at first glance looks like a single exposure. I knew that my interior shots would barely show up if at all, but I was hoping that the repeated process of exposing the paper would expose it and something would come through.