MA-Ness Term3 Week 6 Power of Words, Taking Pictures, Economy of Film, Undercliffe and Competitions....

this weeks post it note, a list and end of a roll of developed film I'll use as a bookmark

I'm writing this on the evening of Bank Holiday Monday as I don't want to leave it any longer plus as I had a really long lie in it still feels like early afternoon to me but this might be a slightly shorter post than usual or I might ramble on like I usually do - who knows....

The big capitals in pink on the post it note:

NARRATIVE

STORY TELLING

AGENCY

AUTHENTICITY 

are there because they are increasingly cropping up in discussions at college and whilst I am fairly sure I understand what they mean in an everyday way I'm not so sure I  fully understand them when they are used in an art related conversation so part of my work this week is to investigate them in that context and see if I can come to a better and more comfortable understanding of them. But the use of language around art in turn makes me think of the bit of the Alan Moore interview I saw the other week in which he talked about the relationship between words and magic and how words are also spells and also the conversation between John Waters and Bruce Haines in Art A Sex Book (|Thames and Hudson USA 2003) in which (my beloved) John Waters says:

'the art world is a secret club with a secret language. What business doesn't have a secret language?..People learn the language if they are interested enough....I like elitism: it's part of the fun of the contemporary artworld - having to learn enough so that you can come into the club and understand it'.

And whilst I understand and to a certain degree agree with this it also makes me slightly uncomfortable as I think it then makes art more inaccessible than it already is. My struggle with this is something that been ongoing since the start of the course (and as we come towards the end of the third term I'm increasingly thinking about what I have learnt and how my work has changed since I started the course back in September) and part of me is also thinking if that might be a good starting point for my dissertation...Other things I'm thinking about are the differences between film and digital - I LOVE my film cameras and to paraphrase Charlton Heston (though he was talking about something unpleasant) you will prise my film cameras out of my cold dead hands I love the faff and ritual of film - as well as the end result but I am increasingly using my lo-mo 3.2 mega pixel camera phone which can just about zoom in but not by very much and it doesn't have a flash or anything fancy on it at all. Unlike the camera on my husbands smart phone which is very fancy indeed and takes lovely pictures.

I am enjoying the phones lightness to carry as well as its image capturing limitations plus it is virtually free to use compared to my film camera (though in order to do a truly comparable comparison I'd have to work out how much it costs per charge and how much per transfer of images from its micro sd card to the main computer) but in terms of actual cash outlay the 93 (!!!!) pictures I took on my way home last week of patterns in the decay of the stonework which caught my eye were effectively free when the same amount of pictures taken on my beloved Minolta 7000 would have meant 2 rolls of 36 and a roll of 24 35mm films and the cost of their development...Mmm.....but the film pictures I did take of Undercliffe Cemetery do look so much lovelier - there's a depth to them that is preferable. Anyway it took me a long time to get a phone with a camera on it and I am beginning to love using it. 

I did some more cyanotype prep this week - and I got to watch the magical potentially poisonous solution being mixed too which was very exciting. One day I will have my own darkroom in which I'll be able to do the same but for now I will continue to enjoy the advantages of the college darkroom, anyway this week I prepped red, grey and cream paper and I hope the red paper in particular comes out a lovely purpley colour when exposed to sunlight. I am reading The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins at the moment and it is wonderful. Published in 1860 it was the first of the victorian sensation novels and there is brief mention of 'sun pictures' being made in it - the uncle wants all of his collection of drawings and coins taken. Part of me is wondering exactly what kind of sun pictures they were - were they cyanotypes? I shall have to research my photographic processes history to see what is most likely they would have been using...

I've still been struggling with energy levels though - think the lurgy I had took more out of me than I realised really as I was really flagging during the week - so much so I didn't go to see the Susan Sontag documentary at the Hyde Park and it takes a lot for me not to go to the pictures (especially at the Hyde Park as it is one of my all time favourite places to go) but I was just too tired plus I checked online and I can watch it there - I want to see it as part of me is hoping that if I see the documentary they'll be less for me to read of the pile of books next to my desk from the college library which I keep renewing but don't get any nearer to finishing and in some cases starting....

But aside from The Woman In White which I am absolutely loving I am also absolutely loving Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes which is just gorgeous - sad, thoughtful, thought provoking, just really wonderful writing and his descriptions of photographs and the memories they contain or rather fail to is still percolating through my brain - it makes me think of the way I look at old family photographs, photographs of times I have no direct experience or memory of, and in turn it then makes me think of how much people take photographs today - the constant clicking (albeit electronically) of shutters and what happens to those images? Because to me photograph doesn't just mean image - it means a physical format of some kind, a print. Do any of the images destined for Twitter or Facebook ever get printed out? Ever made into a physical thing that doesn't just sit on a timeline and server? 

I was also reminded this week of the potential differences between how I see my work and how others may see it - I took pictures on a pinhole camera (on 35mm film)  and showed the scanned negative of one of my results to a college professional. I'm not that keen on the picture (it's a 2 second exposure of Whitby Abbey) but she loved it and thought it was really good. Alas I did not take it on 26th April which was World Pinhole Camera Day so I didn't upload that one to the site but the one I took in the pub which you can see here which I did take on the Sunday. 

I have also entered one of my pics in the Museum of the Year Photography Exhibition - details here, I doubt very much I'll win as the pictures I took when I was at the wonderful Whitworth were more for my own personal research on my trusty lo-mo camera phone but you never know....

I used my big Fuji instant camera and my Minolta when I went to Undercliffe Cemetery on Wednesday for a tour and launch of the latest photographic book by Mark Davis - it was lovely pootling about the cemetery at night taking pictures in the twilight whilst hearing a bit about its history. I especially enjoyed using my instant camera:

    

This week is hopefully going to consist of energy levels starting to feel fully back to normal as well as lots of printing, a studio tour, a meeting about potential plans for Light Night and a pop up cinema. it's exciting having lots on and to think about but there is also part of me that feels a bit tired just looking at my diary for this week.....

MA-Ness Term 3 Week 1 - Lumen Adventures, Do Things Look Better In Colour and Reading

another purloined college of art post it note

Well back to college with a bang this morning - lectures as such don't start again for me til the end of the week but I thought I'd go in and get some printing and acetate copying done and the computer drop in room was packed - though thankfully there was one spare desk/computer so I was able to get all the stuff done I wanted to - namely copies of lumen prints I'd been experimenting with in photoshop.

I never thought I'd see the day when I began using photoshop so casually.  Partly because it is a potentially expensive piece of software and I would rather use more open source more easily available image manipulation software (I do still use the very simple but gets the basic job done Microsoft Viewer that comes as part of the Windows operating system so at least once you can afford a windows computer you have no further outlay - other than your leccy bill that is) but also because I think it can make people lazy - I often hear people say 'oh, it's not quite straight - oh well I'll sort that in post production' and I think 'NO - why not just take a more straight picture in the first place?'

But this probably also has lots to do with the way I take photos - my enjoyment (and frustration) is in taking or making the picture in the first place - not beggaring about with it afterwards on the computer aside from maybe a bit of cropping and brightness/contrast adjusting. I could think of nothing more boring than slowly editing an image - though using it to create a completely new image is fine (as opposed to correcting mistakes that could have easily been avoided with a bit more care in the first place) and what is especially good at in a way the basic microsoft viewer isn't.

But all this justification is a long winded way of saying I've been using photoshop a lot more recently - partly to get images ready for printing on fabric on the big fabric printers at college which need files in a v specific format and size and also to invert images to make them into negatives for printing onto acetate to make cyanotypes with.

Anyway I finally made a lumen print I was happy with HURRAH !!!! I then took a colour digital print of it as without fixing it will change and deteriorate over time (though to guard against that it is now in a plastic wallet covered with paper and kept in a folder out of direct sunlight) and then using photoshop I made it into an inverted b+w negative for cyanotyping. My husband keeps urging me to fix it but I love the fact that it is so fragile and so alive still - even if that life will ultimately lead to it potentially disappearing - I'm a fan of deliberate photographic decay.

I've also had a go at flipping images along the horizontal (one of my pieces I'm working with most at the moment is an image of angel from the top of a grave in the victorian part of Cleethorpes Cemetery - and I want to try and create a piece where you will walk between angels and this is now nearer realisation as I now have copies of the same angel but each pointing in a different direction) and adding a copyright notice too - this is a very crude example but I will work on it making it more to my liking - in terms of size and placement and text but I was getting anxious about putting images on the tinternet in case they get used without my permission (and payment!!) in places - and this is a small step to stop that happening - though of course someone else with better photoshop skills than me could easily take that watermark back off again I'm sure......   

I'm really pleased with how the lumen print now looks like its own ghostly x ray cousin though and will be working on this process more - this one is made from bits from an easter decoration I got for half price on Easter Sunday when I was walking back from having had a wonderful monochrome Hitchcock and Farley Granger fix at the ever wonderful Hyde Park Picture House.

 On Saturday I went for a walk round on Ilkley Moor and took photographs on colour and black and white film - and am chuffed with how they turned out - though a picture of some graffitti showing a very long hand drawn cock in yellow chalk which I took in b+w looks much better in the colour film version taken by my husband. It's a rare occasion when I say something looks better in colour as my usual mantra is 'everything looks better in black and white' but on this occasion I am happy to be proved wrong.

And along with taking pictures I also picked up bits of dead fern, fallen leaves and other bits of leafy detritus to make a site specific lumen print of Ilkley Moor - and depending on how that turns out I might make it into its own ghostly x ray cousin too.

Going back to my post it note - I've also been a right girly swot this week as in I have actually done a strengths,weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis of where I'm at practice-wise at the moment. It helped concentrate and organise my thoughts as well as remind me that I am still beyond glad not to be in that corporate soul sucking business world where business planning tools like that were used every day. Business speak - well any kind of jargon gets right on my tits frankly but some more than others and I dread being subsumed by it and using it without noticing but this can also lead to my not using approaches or techniques that could be very useful so it's something for me to watch both for and against in future. I mustn't let my initial dislike of something get in the way of its usefulness. 

I've also tried to make lists of all the projects I'm working on at the moment - where I'm up to with each one and what still remains to be done. I've filled out a couple of expression of interest forms (Kirkstall Arts Trail and Love Arts Trail) and also got a new list of images to get printed on glossy paper (though I think tracing paper will be hard to beat for a floaty ethereal look)and on adhesive too as I have some images I'd like to transfer to grave candles.

The other lovely thing I did last week was pick up a book again!! after feeling like I hadn't looked at one properly for weeks (though I had read a couple of books of wonderfully heartwarming and funny essays by David Sedaris and finished Still Alice for WI Book Club - not overly impressed with that one to be honest but here isn't the place to discuss it really) and I finally finished two and took them back to the library - one was about photographs not taken, one was about Baudrillard (not sure he's entirely my cup of tea though I like some of his ideas and approaches) and the very beautiful catalogue from the Drawn By Light exhibition at the Media Museum.

It really is a thing of beauty and wonderment and there are many gorgeous sumptuous images contained therein as well as some thought provoking bittersweet images too and I now have a whole new list of photographers to find out more about though top of the list along with Henry Peach Robinson and Fred Holland Day. It also includes a v handy easy to understand list of the different kinds of photographic prints with an explanation of which is which - a boon for someone like me who is an intuitive as opposed to technically knowledgeable photographer.

Along with lumen prints I also with the help of my ever patient, supportive and technically more competent than I am on a computer husband got pictures off my phone's micro sd card by using an sd adapter card device. I know how to use an ordinary sd card and how to get the images off it (the images in this blog post originally came off an sd card) but for some reason I failed to read the words ADAPTOR on the sd card adaptor in the drawer where things like the mp3 player cable is kept. DOH!!! For some reason although I looked at it a few times my brain just did not register the word ADAPTOR on it - I thought it was just the spare sd card but I've learnt that lesson now and have since made some acetates from images I took at the Whitworth the other week. It's a v basic camera phone but it's handy and I'm pleased with the shadowy self portrait images I've got and intend to make cyanotypes of them shortly.

I showed a portfolio of A3 size tracing paper images to some chums on Friday night and got very positive feedback from them - which was very gratifying to hear. Think I'll also take them into college for feedback from my fellow ma-ers at some point too. It's still quite a scarey thing sharing 'art' photos as opposed to 'just snaps of stuff' on Facebook when it's good to get likes but as they're almost invariably of either of my cats looking cute or the foxcubs down the bottom of the garden I'm emotionally invested in them in an entirely different way. One chum said that the 'art photos' were noticeably such because of the process behind them (almost all were film in origin before being digitally printed or made into cyanotypes) and because they are considered as opposed to just 'snapped' for in effect free on an sd card that quality of them shines through.....but part of me also is thinking these people are my chums and so might temper their criticism accordingly and so not give me the completely honest and constructive criticism I (think) I want.

Mmm as ever - much food for thought...and I'd best crack on with sorting out my printing from this morning.....