Today I worked on researching into photography and self portraits. I researched into the spirit photographer William Mumler, he was born in the year 1832 and was an American Spirit Photographer. This technique of Spirit Photography was first used and created by William Mumler after accidentally exposing the film within the camera twice using two different images. He used this technique to act as a Medium pretending that he could display the link between the spirits and the living world. William Mumler would use this technique and act to profit by selling pictures of individuals with the ghost or spirits of their dead loved ones aside them.
Even William Mumler's colleague 'Weston' who had been taught "photography by the best. If something was amiss in Mumler's process, surely he would have spotted it. And yet he had not." (1* reference below) People were not able to figure out how William Mumler was able to capture these images and his colleague 'Weston' described that he had "seen nothing different from taking an ordinary picture". (2* reference below)
I considered using the same process as William Mumler when it came to taking my own self portraits but I went against this idea as it involved using a film based camera which was not a piece of equipment I could get within the time frame that I had, so I moved on to look at another technique that involved using a slow shutter speed.
I reflected on what a self portrait achieves and how it will be affected by the slow shutter speed, I came up with this short list:
-A self portrait is a representation of the artist themselves and come in many different forms such as, photographs, a painted piece or even a sculpture.
-A slow shutter speed changes the way we perceive the world around us and warps it into this new 'altered state'.
Here are some of the photographs that I took during the workshop:
The idea of moving your head while taking the long exposure image was used by most people, so after taking the image I decided that I wanted to work on an idea that involved a concept that was a bit more unique and original. Me and Daniel came up with the concept of creating an image that merged us together in the centre of the image, we created this effect by timing how long we stood in different positions, Dan started in the chair and I stood on his right for 10 seconds, we then switched places and he stood on my left for 10 seconds as I now sat in the chair, producing the result you see above. After considering what concepts I could work on next I looked back to my research and was intrigued to see if I could create a similar result to the work of William Mulmer, however instead of creating a peaceful and wholesome image of a spirit with their loved one, I actually created one that depicted a ghostly hand around my throat. I believe that this image would have turned out better if I had stayed more still so that there would have been a greater distinction between the semi transparent ghostly hand and my face. The final image that I captures was another experiment that didn't have a clear objective, me and Dan decided to simply move about in a space holding a position for a few seconds to allow the long exposure to capture us.
I ended up producing some work that I really liked with the use of slow shutter speed as well as projecting images and design onto a wall once they had been printed onto acetate sheets. I think my favourite task within the workshop was the task that involved working with drawing on acetate sheets and projecting them onto the wall, as I came up with something that I thought was unique and creative and would look quite dramatic once I had taken the image into photoshop and boosted the contrast.
Overall this workshop was really fun to experiment with as well as see what the other students managed to create. If I was to do this again I think I would try to be more confident and go for more experimental and abstract concepts.
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