Mapping Project

A map is an item that tells you about something. It can tell you about a space, a location, where to drive, or the torrid history of someone's love life. The point of this project was to choose something, and then, quite simply, 'map' it.

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When I first head about the 'mapping' project, I decide that I wanted use Harkness Kitchen as my subject. Harkness is my house and I feel a deep connection t it, but a lot of people have a very skewed impression of what goes on there and who we are. Much of this project is about trying to rectify that by showing a different, more intimate view.

To this end, I shot, developed, and scanned nine rolls of film taken during all the meals, during clean-up crew, or after everyone had left, in the middle of the night. Unfortunately due to time constraints and problems with my negatives (light leaks in the camera, light leaks in the developing tank, old film...) I decided to greatly scale down my project from a holistic 15-20 image collage ranging from Harkness desolate in the wee hours of the morning to the hustle and bustle of our weekly 'Pizza Night.'

After a few hours of deliberation with the 180-200 negatives I shot (only about two thirds of which were fully viable options) I finally decided on a new concept: THE HARKNESS KITCHEN: an atmosphere unique.

In this, instead of a large scale project with many images, I really spent a lot of time choosing specific images I felt were really representative of the cooks, the atmosphere of cooking, and the camaraderie and passion of all the people involved with the cooking in Harkness. Each image was placed with intent and chosen to illustrate a specific aspect of the kitchen that I feel is important. Harkness is busy, complicated, but above all a real community of people who care about each other and I really tried to bring this out in my prints.

Enjoy.

Scanned Prints:
To be added
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Scanned Negatives:






Project negatives: Mapping Project

Experimentation Projects

In the beginning of my photo class we did two short projects where we were basically supposed to just mess around with and get a feel for the camera - what were its strengths and what were its weaknesses. These projects were really just about exploration and nothing else.
The negatives for both projects can be found at the end of the post.

Print a Photo project -
For this project we were supposed to print one of the photos that we shoot on the two rolls of film that the professor supplied us. Mine was of the dining area in the co-operative that I eat in.

Scanned Prints:
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Scanned Negatives:

Black and White project -
For this project we were supposed to take pictures of and print 3 images. One that was black on black, one that was white on white, and one that was black on white. This was to get us used to printing with the full spectrum of black to white. It also was to show us that even though something was white when you shot it — that does not mean it has to or will print white.

Scanned Prints:
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Scanned Negatives:



Project negatives: Experimenting Projects

Relics From The Past

For Thanksgiving, I went to visit some relatives that I have in Kentucky. The food was good and the company was great, in fact barring one incident, the whole trip was very rewarding. That one incident, unfortunately, was that I developed a severe case of bronchitis in the days leading up to thanksgiving and so most of my ‘holiday’ was spent prone, coughing, and generally feeling like shit. That being said, this was the first time in recent history inasmuch as I can tell that I actually had thanksgiving with relatives other than my immediate family and, all things considered, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Anyway, one of the most interesting parts of my trip was that my cousin Jessica (who had inherited most of my father’s old film gear) gave me all of her equipment because she had since gone wholly digital. While all the equipment was really ace and in good condition, the real gem that I found was a roll of undeveloped colour film nestled at the bottom of the bag.

When I got back and re-entered the swing of things, the mysterious film was set aside but it always tugged at the back of my conscience. The tugging then intensified almost unbearably when I learned the process for developing colour film, but I just couldn’t seem to find them time. But then one day I did.

As I loaded the film, a myriad of scenarios ran like wildfire through my mind. I had long since decided that the roll was Jessica, accidentally discarded, but what the film contained (and whether this film would even develop anything) eluded and teased me mercilessly. I was pretty sure that the pictures were simply landscapes shot on one of the many hiking trips my physically active cousin and her significant other went on, either that or a bunch of pictures of animals — she is a veterinarian — that she either saw or treated. However, there was a little voice in side me that secretly hoped that the images were of a forgotten honeymoon photo shoot or of similar ill-advised nature. The truth was actually much better than any of this.

When I took the film out of the developer, it almost was extremely dark, deep magenta, so dark in fact, that I almost threw it out but some unknown force stayed my hand and I instead went and scanned it. The pictures were horribly degraded and my low-quality scan did not help much and so I went back and scanned them at 800 dpi and they finally became clear.

The negatives were not shot by my cousin, nor were they anywhere as mundane as I thought. These images were instead taken 14 years ago when my father was in Zimbabwe visiting his brother. It amazes me that this film, stored the the hot landscapes out Houston, TX and then central Kentucky even came out, but as soon as I saw the first elephant tusk, that just made the film so much more priceless.

The Best Unseen

Throughout the duration of my photography class I shot and developed 33 rolls of film including 35mm Black/White, 35mm Colour, and 120mm Colour. Most of these rolls were shot for one of my four projects, but some were shot simply to explore the photographic medium. What this means is that now that the class has finished I have ended up with hundreds of photos that no one except me has seen. Some of these photos were just shot for fun, and some were shot for projects, but for some reason or another they were never printed.

With all that said, when I was scanning and uploading the negatives that I had shot during the class, I rediscovered many 'hidden' gems that I had forgotten about. These photos that didn't make the cut are ones that I thought were well executed or I just really liked and when I saw them again decided that they deserved to be viewed somewhere.

There isn't any real rhyme or reason to them, except I took them and thought they turned out well. Enjoy
-pica

That Perfect Roll

When you are shooting film, there are so many things that can go wrong. The exposure can be wrong, the camera can move at the last second, and you can forget to load the film. Then you can have light leaks, expired chemicals, developing errors, or scratched negatives. Essentially a huge variety of possible critical errors. However, you can also sometimes get that one roll where everything, for some reason or another, just works. For me, that roll came when I was in New York City on holiday.

Personally, I have loved New York City for as long as I can remember. I wholeheartedly believed in the hyper-romanticism that Hollywood (and American art in general) has swathed the city in. Then, when I visited last NYC last spring for the first time, I wasn't disappointed. I think there is something magical when you walk through that urban forest of glass and steel, feeling the energy of the 'city that never sleeps' following out of the cafes and parks and into the streets.

In fact, I had such a great time during the spring, that I immediately booked another trip as my fall. It was on this trip, a few months ago in October, that I took this roll. Unfortunately, I lost my film for the first few days so I only could shoot about half the roll in NYC and the other half when I returned home, but my luck seemed to carry on through, turning into my favourite roll I ever shot.

Enjoy.