Double Exposures: Hands

Alrighty here is the final part of my darkroom project from last semester (here's parts one and two if you're interested). These four pictures are a mini extension of my project, where I tried to communicate emotions through body language. Since these images were some of the last ones I shot, I wasn't sure where I was headed with this theme, but I think that some of them are the most meaningful of the bunch as a whole. With shooting this project I never knew what would come out of the roll, either I wasn't sure if the film would align or the two images would blend well together, I think these images feature the surprises I received when I developed the rolls.

While I was looking at my contact sheet I discovered that these two images formed a diptych of two hands growing out of a barrier. So this double exposure actually consists of four images. I really love how this image turned out, how the arms are extending out of each other and how every time I look at it I'm forced to think about what it could mean. 

This is an instance in which the film didn't align as I shot it through the second time. With this image I like that the hand over the tree is barely visible and that the hand grows from the tree. I once heard somebody say that they are a tree, meaning they are growing inwards and outwards, and I think that description summarizes what this photo means to me. And heres a fun fact about this image: the hand and the tree required different exposure times (6 seconds and 12 seconds respectively), and you can tell how unsteady hands through the black line from trying to dodge the hand... working in a darkroom is hard (but it's worth it!

-Jessica

Double Exposures: People

Here is the second part of my project of double exposures. I decided to call this group of photographs  "people" because although this section and the previous section are portraits, I feel that these portraits arenot about isolating emotions and are about an individuals interactions with their emotions and the outside world. About half way through my project, my instructor wanted me to expand on my portraits and not focus solely on using silhouettes. One of her comments on the previous group of pictures was that they became too repetitive and although I loved the concept, I agreed and with these I didn't try to replicate anything I'd seen on the internet with double exposures and did things more for fun.

I've got one more section of double exposures left to share (it's a small study on hands) and it should be up within the next week or so! - Jessica

Double Exposures: Silhouettes

For my darkroom project this past semester, I decided to focus on double exposure.  This is one of three posts that will feature my work for my final project. I originally started out just photographing silhouettes and textures to show how complicated the human mind is.

With the above photo I tried sandwich printing, the process of placing two negatives together to replicate a double exposure. And it was the first photo I made for this project. I ended up having to expose the paper for 3 minuets but I'm really happy with the results. 

I'll be uploading the other posts within the next couple of weeks and I'll try to catch up on sharing on my photos from this past semester on here! - Jessica

Faceless

I officially finished my first year of college last week and I have a good week and a half break before my summer class starts. As I've previously mentioned, I took my first actual photography class this semester and as a whole I feel that I've learned so much and as a result I feel confident about perusing photography has a profession. As a bit of a refresher, for my final project I wanted to photograph portraits of people that don't show the subject's face, in order to place an emphasize on translating emotion through body language. During the last couple of weeks of class, I feel that my project evolved a little and I'm really not sure of the direction it headed. One of the things I started trying was double exposures, and I still trying to figure out the meanings behind why I captured them and how they influenced my project. Well that's enough rambling, here are the group of photos I put up last week for my final critique.

Overall I'm extremely satisfied with my work from this semester and I'm looking forward to taking this darkroom class again next semester! - Jessica

darkroom

Hello internet, here is another darkroom class update! Today we had our second critique and for this project we got to pick what we wanted to shoot. I choose to photograph faceless portraits that translate emotion through body language. Overall the critique went really well and I got to hear some comments and feedback on my project. This critique was leading up to the final project which I feel very confident about. I've only got about three more weeks to shoot and print on this project and I already have some more ideas about how I'm going to wrap this project.

Print Scans

I previously mentioned I'm taking a darkroom class and next Monday we are having our first critique. I'm a little nervous but I feel confident with what I've developed so far. For the critique we need to have 5 prints and 5 contact sheets, I managed to get 6 prints! Going into this past Monday (a week before the critique), I was particularly nervous because I had only had 2 prints and one contact sheet. But boy was I determined because in 2 class periods I managed to get 4 prints and 4 contact sheets. Here are my prints in that I developed them so you can see the progress I've made in 7 weeks of class.

Fingers crossed that my critique turns out well! - Jessica