Photograms

Artist's Statement:

The project was to create photograms by exposing photo paper to light while there were objects on it. Ideally the object would have some personal connection, and create interesting negative spaces. It was also encouraged that there also be object with varying opacity.  We were to make two photograms with different arrangements. We could chose between matte photo paper, or shiny photo paper, and I chose to use one for each. 

We started out by making test strips of the photo paper, to see how many seconds of light were needed to get the paper fully exposed. Then we centered the glass tray, to make sure that all the paper was exposed. Then we arranged the objects that related to us in whatever way we wanted. After that we exposed the paper (for 10 seconds) at aperture 8 (F8). We then developed the paper by putting it in develope, stop, and fix trays, with water in between.

One thing that I liked about this process was that it was all done in the relative dark, in the darkroom. I also liked the developing process, and how we got to see the image appear. One thing that I might have done differently was that I might have chosen to use more transparent objects, to have more grays along with black and white. I also prefered the shiny paper to the matte paper, so I might have done both of them in shiny if I had known.