This is my latest offering to the art world in the form of ten black and white prints. The collection was the summery of work for my Foundation Diploma at the University of Bolton in May 2007, my Final Major Project. With this project I achieved a double Merit and has gained me my degree place at Manchester Metropolitan University starting in September 2007.
This piece started to take shape in February when I have to submit my Statement of Intent to my lecturers, and then to my external examiner. I eventually had my finished piece on the wall by mid-may, in time for the internal examiners to view and mark it and then the external examiner to “verify” the marks a week later. The final show was opened to the public on the 30th May 2007 and the show ran until the 4th June. Four of the pieces are now displayed around my house, while the others are in storage.
The ten photographs alone did not achieve this, I also wrote a book from interviews taken in the context of the subject matter. The text from the book is in the description of each of the images and the introduction is with the front page of the book.
For this project I use my ever handy Minolta X300 with 24mm (f2.8) & 50mm (f1.7) lenses. I used Kodak Tri-X 400, developed in Kodak TMAX (1:4 6 minutes, 10seconds/minute agitation, 20oC). I did want to use XTOL with the film, but couldn’t source any in time for this project.
All of the final prints were produced using split grade printing. This is a process in the darkroom where one exposes a negative at filter 0 (preferably at 00 if possibly) and find the best timing for highlights, then doing a second exposure on top at filter 5 where you are trying to find the best exposure for the shadow detail, which together make up the overall best exposure for the negative, without the hassle of dodging, burning, farmers solution, etc.
Any comments, crit or praise is welcome and encouraged, so please do speak your mind.