Intro to Still Life Photography

Purpose:

To be a still life photographer who makes pictures rather than simply takes them. 

To use control over every aspect of the scene. 

To be a photographer who preplans the images and sets them up. 

To compose compositions, making them dramatic, making the viewer really see the objects in a new way.

The first step to setting up the chemicals in the darkroom is to grab three trays to put them in. Align them so that the closest to the wall is the developer then, moving towards the sink, water (stop bath), and fixer. Mix developer with a 1:9 ratio (1 mL of developer for 9mL of water) and pour it in the bin closest to the wall since this is the first chemical to put the paper in. Then in the middle, fill the tray with water. Lastly, fill the tray closest to the sink with fixer which should be in the brown jug. Test it, and if the drops come out clear it’s good. If the fixer looks yellow, pour it with a funnel into the waste jugs and use a new fixer for the tray. 

To make a contact sheet, place a piece of photo paper under the plastic sleeve with all the negatives from the roll of film. Put a piece of glass over it and then expose everything for the desired time. Prior to this, test strips would have been used to decide the correct exposure time. Develop the paper by putting it through the chemicals that have been laid out. 

To enlarge a photograph, take the tray out of the enlarger and make sure the photo that will be enlarged is centered and completely through the rectangular hole. Insert the tray back into the enlarger and turn on the light. Adjust the focus and size of the projection, making sure it will fit on the photo paper. Turn off the light. After doing test strips to determine the exposure time, place a full piece of photo paper shiny side up under the enlarger and use the timer to match the exposure time. Then go through the chemical process using the chemicals set up previously. Spend one and a half minutes agitating the paper in the developer, starting with the shiny side down and flipping it about halfway through. After that, put the paper in the stop bath for one minute while still agitating. Then, place it in the fixer for 45 seconds before placing it in a tray and making sure it looks good in the light. If it does, place it back in the fixer for 3 minutes and 15 seconds. The last step is to rinse the paper in water with the faucet running for 5+ minutes before squeegeeing and putting it on the drying rack. 

Contrast is the difference between lights and darks in photographs and high contrast is good for black and white film since it prevents monotony and blending if everything is variable shades of grey, rather than white or black. Filters are used to increase contrast and increase incrementally with a higher number adding more contrast. Overexposure is when the photograph was exposed to light for too long and results in a lighter color than it should have. In contrast, underexposure is a darker color than expected due to not enough exposure to light.