Instant Newton

I am beginning to venture my interests further into instant photography as a result of my infatuation with film photography. I have been meaning to buy a Polaroid for some time now, and after writing this post and looking at these images I think I might just order do so straight away. Photographers often use the form of instant photography to test their shoots. The one off prints that develop in a matter of seconds from the click of the shutter allow photographers to preview a shoot before capturing final images. 

Helmut Newton has been for some time and I'm sure will remain one of my most adored practitioning photographers. Newtons book 'Polaroids' is a collection of his Polaroid test shots and after looking at these wonderful photographs, as well as purchasing my own Polaroid camera; I think I'll also buy the book.

Images: Helmut Newton

Final Selection... Intimate Life

This is how I presented my Intimate Life series today for my photography pin up for marking, response and feedback. I got lots of positive feedback for this series from students in my class and my lecturer, although she didn't let on too much so I will just have to wait for my grade when it's finally handed in. 

I'm personally extremely happy with how these turned out. The images have all been taken, developed and processed by myself. To find out more about the series read here. But to put it simply, it is documenting my grandparents day, mundane I know but that's what intimate life is all about, photographing concepts you would normally ignore. You can click on the image to view it larger, or look at previous posts to see my development.

Images: Authors Own

Intimate Life... One More Time...

If you  read my previous posts Intimate Life and Intimate Life Continued you can read what this piece is about. I only needed a minimum of 5 images for this series but I got a bit carried away in the darkroom, and ended up doing 20... Here are the most recent prints. 

Images: Authors Own

Intimate Life Continued

So a previous post showed a current project I am working on to portray my grandparents everyday life. Read here to find out more about the project and see my first set off images. I spent a few hours today in the dark room developing a few more images for this sequence. Here are two scanning of two of my final prints:

Images: Authors Own

Intimate Life...

For a photography project we had to look at photography as a form of contemporary art. This was based around Charlotte Cotton's book, 'The Photograph as Contemporary Art'. From reading this book into the different styles of art photography, I chose intimate life and based this around my Grandparents. My Granddad has genetic disorder, Macular Degeneration which has a horrible effect on his sight. This has caused him to almost completely lose his vision. For this project I wanted to display their relationship, my Granddads dependance on my Grandmother and his optimistic strive for independence. There are a lot more images to be updated with as I managed to get through 4 36 exposure films in 6/7 hours with them. These are the first few that have all been processed in the darkroom and then scanned to the computer. 

Images: Authors Own

Antique Shop

These pictures were taken on black and white film using my SLR camera. They were taken in an antique shop just a few minutes walk from my house. This was a really good shoot and frustrating, I shot the whole thing on a film and then lost all my images because I accidentally opened the camera back before rewinding the film. But I brought a spare film, and did the whole shoot over.

Images: Authors Own

Film Noir

This series of work was created inspired by 1940s Film Noir cinema. In Film Noir, there are three different types of women portrayed, one of which is the 'femme fatale'. In the movies a femme fatale character often wishes for more in life and ends up killing her husband of whom she is in a loveless relationship with. I chose to portray this in my series, it encapsulates the climax, emotion and suspense before the murder. 

The beautiful model styled her hair and done the simple makeup herself with my guidance just before the shoot, all i did was add the hat and clip the front. Everything was sourced and styled by myself, mainly from my own wardrobe, except for the underwear and coat which my friend had brought along to the shoot and they were perfect. 

It was shot in my boyfriends nan's house which has a great eclectic interior, perfect for my theme. The lighting was created using an outdoor floodlight; it is very Film Noir and worked pretty well considering I had no access to studio lights. I am in love with the outcomes and very proud, here is a selection:

Images: Authors Own

Olivia

Two friends of mine had a beautiful baby girl a few days before christmas, Olivia. These photographs were taken on black and white film and then processed myself. These are scanning's of the final prints, they still need some work doing, but aren't they adorable. 

I don't see her often as I am currently living in London, and they are at my hometown of Portsmouth; after looking at photographs of her now and then looking back at these I can't get over how quickly they change in just a few months. Look at the difference between the first two... the left one was taken at 3 days old and the others at about a week and she's changed so much! 

I'm missing out on a lot :( I love the bottom two... caught in action, the left one especially because it looks like she's either blowing a kiss, whistling or saying oooooooh hard day!

Images: Authors Own

Studio

These images were taken in the studio using continuous lighting to create a film noir lighting effect, basically we just mucked around with the lights to see what we could create. These images are not retouched I just played around with the levels a little. I'm really pleased with them as I think they look great regardless, maybe on day I'll get round to editing them and I'll post them up at some point. 

Images: Authors Own

Underground

These were taken on black and white film using my Pentax SLR. They were then developed in the darkroom and scanned. My favourite of this sequence are the second and seventh images, I like the solitude they display and the concept of being alone on the underground although being surrounded by people and in constant contact with humanity.

Images: Authors Own