MEDI 127 (Black and White Photography Critical Evaluation)

Critical Evaluation:

For my black and white photography project I eventually chose to go with a theme on my experiences of Plymouth and although I had a lot of ideas I wanted to do none were feasible due to technical errors. The first idea I had was to focus on the struggle or balance of nature and manmade but there is also manmade nature to consider in this and although I wasn’t able to cover it in the detail I wanted it is still prevalent in my work as a whole. The second idea I had was based on lyrics from a song and in specific “Hear the call of your ancestors of blood and bone, of womb and tomb and standing stone” It’s a very haunting song and one that I like and I have written in my workbook was all shot on the film that didn’t develop with a pregnant friend of mine even offering her belly as the’ womb’ and I do have the particular shot that I wished to represent the standing stones although the enlarger didn’t seem to work for me and it kept going blurry as I enlarged. It was gutting when the film didn’t develop because all of my best ideas were on it. Also I had the idea of doing a photo series all about my ‘pet skull’ Marv.  I took a lot of shots with him in funny and odd places around Plymouth. Sadly of all my ideas fell through however I am overall pleased with the shots I have. I have never used a wet dark room before and due to the printer in dry dark room breaking I have had to use the wet dark room for nearly all of my prints. Also no one actually showed us how to use the wet dark room so I’m really pleased I actually got any prints at all. I would like to have a better grasp of all the technical equipment and I do still feel like a novice but I feel I have done very well considering I have no prior experience in anything like this before.  I should really in hindsight have shot much more film. I’m pleased mostly with the compositions of my shots but there is always room for improvement. I have enjoyed using the SLR cameras and feel that I have picked them up fairly quickly. Overall I have enjoyed this project but think that with a better grasp of the equipment involved I could have done better. Most of the pictures had an average exposure time ranging form about twelve to fifteen minuets and also the black and white filtration of the pictures ranged from three to around four. I feel this project went well but I need more technical awareness of the apparatus I also need to ensure I have enough film to shoot my ideas again if the film doesn’t develop, as stated in my workbook I believe the issues to have been camera side but there is no way of knowing.