With our next HNC unit we’ve moved away from using a camera, to looking at some of the historical process’ and creative techniques that are available.  These are not necessarily about getting the best, sharpest image, but making something creative.

We started in the darkroom looking at Photograms.  This is a process of placing objects onto photographic paper and then using an enlarger to shine light onto the arrangement, thus creating a negative.  This is then developed using the darkroom chemicals.

To get the correct exposure time, as with developing a negative, a test strip is done where card is used to gradually shade less of the photographic paper so that exposures of 5, 10, 15 etc. seconds can be seen.  This process can be repeated if necessary with different enlarger settings.The best time is then chosen for the final image.  (Below are scans of photo paper after developing)

Photogram 5 Second gap test strip

Photogram full size. Sun catcher and fixings

We then repeated the process with negatives that we had shot before on medium format camera’s:

Negative 5 second increment test strip

Negative A4 print