My first film was of 2 homeless people (before my idea changed) with no manipulation.
I did a contact sheet and printed 3 images from this film. It might have been worth using a filter in the images as the contrast is a little flat but they seem to be generally good prints
Above are the 3 images I printed. I’m quite pleased with them, apart from the one of the man in the doorway as it’s a little soft on his face. I think this was because it was a dark doorway and i was trying to use his hands to focus and at F4 this has given me very shallow depth of field.
I do like the other 2 images; his eyes in the closely framed image are very captivating… they draw you in which is very interesting. I like how each subject reacted differently to the camera, the first man (doorway image) was new to being homeless and said that he didn’t want to look directly at the camera and was very nervous, where Steve in coventry has been homeless a lot longer and he looked directly into the camera and is kind of presenting himself confidently to the camera, pulling a mischeivious smile. He was sat under the ring road in a wide open space which is quite unusual as we usually picture the homeless in door ways or streets against the wall.
The location is very reminiscent of a temple, because of the open space and pillars, I found this interesting because this is of course his space that is invaded by passers by and is often moved on by police.
My second film was the quick test film I did at home, I shot normally and breathed on the lens on a few images (trying out Kurtis’ technique). I loosely wrapped this film and left it outside overnight, hoping to get some light leaks and other defects before I developed it.
Once developed, the film came out technically sound; no light leaks, no marks, no defects… obviously this was quite disappointing! All images were sharp and good in tonal range.
The night that I left it out was very very cold which is actually good for film, it stops any chemical changes like colour shifting (in colour film), so this might have been part of the problem. In fact, it’s heat that affects film the most.
It was also a very dry night, so no rain would have falling on the film to cause marks.
The only interesting images that came out on this film was the ones where I fogged the lens.
These images were bleached out in areas due to being slightly under exposed (the fogg on the lens must have reduced the light going in causing under exposure). Other than this, what I found aesthetically pleasing was that some areas were sharp in focus and some were very soft giving quite a dreamy look which I liked. The image is very similar to Kurtis’ image
In regards to the lack of manipulation in this film, I found an article on the Lomography website with a tutorial on how to add light leaks to 120 film which I’m going to give a go!
Alice Riddy 