Post Resolution Work

My large A0 print, I am saving for the Free Range exhibition. I have been working on some post resolution work.
As it is highly experimental I am not displaying it for the degree show. I stated earlier, my work is two different chapters of the same book. This work is the sequel to that work.

These are my original scans:

These colour papers are intense. They represent a dystopian nightmare alternative world. The reason for this is the first half of the series, the empty abandoned interiors that I have been stuck in, and the natural outside world that is a painful release from the first half of the series.

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I inverted the scans, and experimented with the levels and colours, they are still very blue but the colours in some really are not far off. I learned the ISO of colour paper is tricky. The ISO of the magenta is somewhere around ISO 25, but the ISO of the blue is 100. I cut out the magenta,, with two magenta filters that cut 2 stops on the recommendation of one of my tutor's Peter Renn, I now feel I should have used blue filters to filter out the Blue and bring it down by several stops to bring it more in line with ISO 25.
The colours are still quite basic and would need more work to get them to somewhere I might want to display them. However I feel that when the colours are inverted the photographs lose their strange nightmare feel.

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While experimenting with colours I adjusted the midtones in the colour balance adjustment in Photoshop. this was pretty much the first thing that happened, Richard Mosse eat your heart out.

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I retouched these as negatives to retain their nightmare aesthetic. I altered the colours in them though, so each had a strong colour dominating its composition, I think some work really well and accurately display my intentions, but others just dont fit, I feel the some of the series works better in its original negative colours.

An edit of 10x8s

I retouched these files. I haven't tried to perfect any anomalies in the scanning, however I have brought detail out from the highlights, doing this revealed intense light ray developing marks.

These are starting to reflect a dystopian nightmare. It really has the feeling of the strains of everyday life, without directly showing anything directly mundane. These photographs stand in for my feelings surrounding the subjects discussed, while giving a tantalising glimpse, albeit nervous, uncertain view into a release -
"feelings and emotions towards the passage of time: time moving ever forward, my worries over forging a career after uni, my consideration over the choice to study a Masters degree, my fears, my memories of choices made in the past, the rural wilderness I choose to escape to and my desire to float on down the river and into the horizon."

Each viewer is invited to read these images their own way, as I will not present anything that puts the work in any boundaries that specifically defines what it is about.

Those same Initial 10x8 photos

The tones look a bit strange when compressed and re-sized for the web, but when I see these images like this, I take back what I previously said about wanting to display them small. These photographs need to be big. If I could economically print one the size of a bus I would. There is such sharp detail in them I feel one could look at them for hours to pick out all the minor details, the way the elemental objects play out within the composition. Shooting on f64 and careful framing and critical focusing has helped get such a wide depth of field. I did play with the tilting aspects of the 10x8 camera. But I found the shift very useful for framing precise shots. The camera is very unwieldy so I would get it more or less set up right, all leveled and squared away how I wanted, then focus and shift the lens and ground glass precisely how I wanted over 5 minutes. I would take several meter readings, and pay careful attention to the sky, what the clouds were doing, how the light was moving to make sure my exposures were correct. I feel this super slow way of working has helped to create a meaning to my photographs and allowed me to think not just how to perfect the image, but also to ask myself why I am taking each respective image. 

However although it frees my mind to think critically about why I am taking photographs, the size and weight of the camera severely limit the usage of the camera. It lives in a large PeliCase. It rolls on wheels, this means I can not really take it off road very far, and when I walk I must use the easiest least bumpy paths I can find. Often I have a friend to help me with the tripod and setting up 'the beast' aka 'Nidhogg'.