such as the well known 'Dali Atomicus' which is a image of many random things going on, such as cats being thrown in the air and drenched in water and Salvador Dali (a surreal painter) jumping and painting in the same time. 'Dali Atomicus' is a surreal photograph as it has random things going on. One random thing that I picked on was Dali's facial expression. His facial expression could refer to the image itself because his expression is weird as the image. This possibly suggests that the photograph shows Dali's personality because both things are surreal. Also, it has many photographic qualities, for example the water is a lead-in-line and most things are in the rule of thirds. It could give a sense of depth or meaning as the image creates many questions in your head e.g. "why are there floating cats?" or "why is Salvador Dali painting?", etc. No wonder it is a famous photograph because it is very clever how the image is done. Nothing is touching the floor.
As I said earlier that we had to do our research by doing some photography, we done this by copying the image 'Dali Atomicus'. In my group was James Calling. I was given a digital camera instead of a manual camera today. I knew this was going to be hard because digital cameras have quite a slow shutter speed. This meant that my group and I are going to have a hard time getting the timing right for the water being thrown across. I would of preferred the manual cameras because you can set the shutter speed. Plus, when you press the button, the camera immediately captures the shot. I volunteered to be the 'model' because James did not want to be jumping in the shot for some reason. I would of liked to use the camera because I really want to get used to taking images, however James is stopping me do this. If I carry on like this, I will not be prepared to take any photos because my photography skills are quite minimal. To make it look like 'Dali Atomicus', I decided to lay a chair on a fence because it almost looks like the floating chair or the paintings. Then, we had an idea of throwing water because that was one of the main things in the Dali image. I figured out that everybody in the class was using the water idea. It was the toughest shootings we have done so far because of the timing and the slight delay from the camera. We tried counting in 1, 2, 3, then take the image and this made a difference. I only came out with two images because the rest was poorly taken (because of the timing).
Finally, we did a brainstorm about what ideas we could use from the 'Dali Atomicus' photo to put on our final piece. I took a lot of ideas from the water that I could use for my final piece. One idea that I had was to have a waterfall and people/objects pass through the waterfall. This would be taken in a fast shutter speed because I want to capture every water droplet and the things passing through, plus the Dali image used a high shutter speed.My targets are not so get under pressure if when it comes to not get certain images right, i.e. timing in 'our version of Dali Atomicus'.
Next week, I will be receiving my brief for the project that we will be doing. I think that we will be doing further research on 'Dali Atomicus' and possibly some photography (I hope manual cameras).
Unfortunately, I was not here for most for most of this session. I had a work experience interview in the morning so i 
did not start the starter activities and the beginning of today's task. Today, I only did the developing, fixing, drying the film to make it negative and made some prints such as contact prints, final prints and test prints. I will talk about this later. However, I have missed taking the actual photographs for the task. I am really disappointed because I desperately wanted to develop my photography skills as I would like to know more about taking photos manually not digitally (the camera doing the focus, exposure, etc. for you). The reason for this is because I have found out when I used the manual camera the first time with James, I and James did not take loads of shots. I am upset about this as everybody in my group is one step ahead of me. I just hope that I can practice photography next week as I will be able to know how to use the manual camera properly and more professionally.
As I cannot explain the 'taking photographs' part of this session, I shall talk to you about making the film negative. Not one of my group members did the negative bit because I was the only one in my group which knew to do it (I might not be one step behind everybody now). So, to do this I took the film that they prepared for me earlier (put it in the lightproof bag and cut the film, reel it, place it in the container, etc.) and placed it aside. Then, I made the developer by putting in 540ml of water instead of 270ml and I made sure that was 20 degrees Celsius plus I added 60ml of developer instead of 30ml in the water and poured that inside the container (I had to put double the amount of everything because my group used 2 films instead of one. I occasionally had to shake it and bang it on the table every each 
minute. After a couple of minutes I poured the liquid in the sink and washed the container. I put some fix inside the container and waited for 10 minutes (I also had to shake and bang it on the table each minute has passed). When that has finished, I poured the fix in the carton where it came from, not the sink. I it quite useful because you can use the fix over and over again and you do not have to throw it away. Plus, fix is expensive so saving the fix is quite handy. Finally I washed it for ten minutes. When I took the film out, it did not turn out right because I have not left the fix long enough. Other people have done this as well. So, I had to leave it in the fix for awhile and wash it again. Fortunately, the film came out fine. I left it out to dry so when I come back from lunch, the film will be dry and ready to be used in the dark room.
inside the negative file. James held the negatives for me so I can cut them nice and straight. When that was completed, I went inside the dark room. This time, I was more used to the strange red and could see more. I used the contact print maker first to make contact prints by slotting in the films in one half and put the photographic paper in the other half and closed the two halves together. I used the enlarger machine to shine white light onto the contact print maker. Then I develop, fix, wash and dry the photo, then they come up. I used these prints to see what my photographs will look like if I printed them. Meanwhile, I made some test strips to see the different shades of light on my photograph. This helped me choose the shade of light I want for my final prints. When I made the final prints, I kept on looking back at the test strips to see what kind of shade I would like.
In this session, we were going to be going something special. We were going to make our photographs in the dark room. Again, I was working with James Calling. I will be making different types of prints with James, such as contact prints, test strips and final prints. I know it does not look like there is so much to do however, it takes such a long process making negative prints. You can not just send them to Boots and let them do it for you, they can not do negatives. If they did, it would take them forever!
Firstly, I took the negative films out of the drying cabinet. I cut the unnecessary bits of the film (where there is no photography and is completely black) and put them in the bin because they were no use to me or James. When I got the bits of the film I needed (I only have 7 bits of useful film) in a negative file to protect them from scratching because they are very fragile. Next, we went inside the dark room. The dark room is dark (obviously) and shined red light. It was red because the film does not react with red light, it only reacts to bright white light that can only be found in the enlarger machines which prints the 'photographic light' onto photographic paper. We were going to make contact prints to see what the photographs will look like if we printed them but contact prints are minimised versions of these (they are the size of the films). To make 
these, you have to take the films out of the negative file and put them in a contact print maker. It has two sides, one for the films and one for the photographic paper. So, once you have slotted the films in one half and slot the paper in the other, you close the halves together. When they are in place, you shine the bright white light from the enlarger for 5 seconds. Finally, you develop (for 1 minute), fix (for 4 minutes), wash(for 10 minutes) and dry it(30 seconds or less). The first time I and James done it turned out to be a failure. We printed on the wrong side of the paper which made the print black. In the second time, we done it.
The second part of printing was the test strips. For this, we only used half of the photographic paper. Test strips show you different shades of light for the photograph of your choice. To make test strips, I covered each section of the paper by two centimetres and shined light to each two centimetre section but in different times for each section (e.g. 2/4/6/8/10 seconds). Finally, you develop, fix, wash and dry it. I chose to do one without film to see different light shades. It turned 
out great, it shows the best light shade in the middle. Next, I did one with film. It was rubbish because the sections were out of place, jagged and left white bits between each section. Fortunately, the test strip still shows the shades of light.
The final stage was the final prints. The test strips helped me with this as they gave me information on which shade of light I should use. This time, I used a whole piece of photographic paper. I chose to do one photo with 4 seconds of exposed light, another with 6 seconds of exposed light and one with 8 seconds. In the end, I came out with three successful prints and no mistakes made. Mr Hind said that my first print was perfect. If I get a chance next week, I will make a photograph with different sections of exposed light so it looks different.
My target for this week is to not loose track of work if I get it wrong and just press on. I need to get less distracted by people in sessions and make more prints.
Next week...well, I do not know what is going to happen next week. All I can say is I am very proud of myself for producing fantastic prints. I think it is very easy. I hope we will go in the dark room again next week.
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In today's session, I began by starting a completely new unit which was called the Artefact Unit. This unit is very different to the Performance and the Campaign unit. This is because I and everybody else will be working individually. I personally think this would be challenging for me because I have been working in a group or in pairs throughout the CRAM Media course. I have rarely worked as an individual. Also, this unit is mainly about art. Mr Hind told me that we will be creating our own pieces of art. However, our art has to be three dimensional. This meant I have to use sculptures, etc. Plus, we have to accompany this with our own photography. Unfortunately its not that simple. We will be creating 'wet photography' (basically black and white photographs). Our main task is to create your own piece of art including pieces of 
photography and 3D art which expresses our feelings and also shares a point. I already had ideas whizzing through my head in seconds. Although I had loads of ideas, I am going to have a hard time choosing one. I might have to talk to Mr Hind about this. But first of all, I needed a point, one of my ideas in my head was a point about teeth (I really do not know why I came up with that, it just came in my head!)
The film camera only has a 26 picture space. Not only that, we were given a word and we had to take pictures that correspond to that word. Our word was 'pattern'. I thought this was a hard word because there was not many patterns to choose from in the school and outside the school. Plus, we had to take them in a professional way (by fiddling with the focus, exposure, zoom, etc). I knew this was going to take a very long time. When you take a picture, you have to check the shutter speed every time. If the shutter speed is too fast, on the screen comes a red + sign. If the shutter speed is too slow, on the screen comes a red - sign. When you get the shutter speed right, it comes up with a green spot. It functions differently in different lighting. Everything is done manually in every picture, a digital camera does it for you. I think I took some good pictures. Unfortunately, we only took seven. After shooting, we headed back to the photography room to develop, fix and wash the film, plus dry it.
because the film will be ruined if it gets exposed in sunlight or any kind of light. I cut the film, reeled it and put it into the box. This was difficult because you had to put your hands into the sleeves of the lightproof bag, only doing these task with only the sense to touch, not see. Then I took it out and put some developer inside the box. I had to wait seven minutes and shake occasionally. Then, I poured it out and added the fix. I had to do the same but wait four minutes. After that, I poured that out and washed the film for ten minutes. Finally I took the film out and it was completely negative so it cannot get exposed to sunlight. I put it in the drying container. I have to wait until next week to take the film out.
Finally, I had to do some background/artwork research about some famous artists. The three artists were called Tracy Emin (famous for her bed sculpture), Damien Hirst (famous for cutting animals in half) and Antony Gormley (famous for his metal sculptures). All three artists have the same thing in common, they like to do three dimensional art. The three were unusually interesting for some reason as some of their pieces are quite strange.
