Inspired Photogram

I chose to make a collage inspired by Elliott Erwitt. It’s an ironic moment where the man could be standing behind and look like he’s on top of the surfboard which is on top of the car. I cut out the car with the surfboard and put it on a new background then I added the man in the canoe on top of the surfboard. I wanted to create an ironic moment because those are my favorite canids by Elliott Erwitt. In the dark room I tried different exposure times and the apertures on multiple test strips before deciding for my full print. I chose to expose for three seconds and to have my aperture at two. I used the composition rule formal balance.

The car was by the ocean and so I changed the background so it was driving through a desert and there was a man “in the background” that looked like he was surfing on top of the car. To do this I cut of a picture of a man in a canoe from another water scene and glued him on top of the surfboard. Then to prepare it for the dark room I took a picture of it, turned it black and white in photoshop, inverted it and then printed it on transparency paper. I used this print to make a segmented test strip of one second intervals at an aperture of 3. By looking at this test strip I chose to expose my full test strip for five seconds, but it came out way too dark and then we ran out of class time. The next day I had to start over the process because the chemicals change and so I made a bunch of test strips testing different times and going back and forth with apertures two and three, I still didn't get my full print because I ran out of time. I went home and thought about what worked and what hadn't and decided to try three seconds at aperture two and I did two test strips to try out the chemicals and it worked. So I did my first full page print.

I chose to create this collage because I like candid shots that look like something is happening that’s not because of the perspective. It ended up being two kinds of environments connecting, a beachy car and a desert making it look like a man is surfing on top of a car. One thing that makes this image weak is that the car and the landscape have very different lighting so it’s obvious that it is copied and pasted, but once it is in black and white this might become less obvious and it will be stronger. If I was to add to this collage I would add more to the background because it is kind of boring and hard to believe that the man would be there all by himself. In the darkroom I went through a long process of making test strips because I kept running out of time. My first full page print turned out okay, but it isn't perfect and I can improve it. I'm going to have to make new test strips because the chemicals have changed. One way that I'm going to improve it is making sure the borders are even and one thing that bothers me is that the car is going in the wrong direction so when I reprint it I'm going to make sure it's going the same way as the collage.