Professional Practice Final Submission

Professional Practice – Semester 1

Attempting and Refining New  Practices

This module is delivered in two parts.

Part 1

Practitioner Study

Using guidance and material from lecture and seminar programme, develop a blog investigation into a range of creative practitioners that you are initially unfamiliar with. Develop this as a ‘branched’ investigation with images, biographies and image evaluations. Discuss the functionality and usage of their work, and comment upon work that defines a new or changing role for photography in relation to other visual media.

Part 2

Practical Investigation

Identify processes, techniques or modes of working that are new to you and work on imagery production that develops, refines and combines these practices.

Work towards a professional quality portfolio of images that combines evidence of study and practice from both Parts ready for critique seminar at the end of the Semester.

Present – A range of professional prints in Seminar, not necessarily mounted along with your blog link.

Deadline – January Seminar 1 assessment week, date to be advised.


Assignment Details


Name of School Course Title Module Title Tutor
Assignment Title
Arts Humanities and Social Sciences BA(Hons) Photographic Media Professional Practice (20 credits) Richard Peregrine
Attempting and Refining New Practices


Learning Outcomes Assessed in this assignment
• Make major decisions, informed by their experience, about the nature and direction of their personal practice
• Challenge the conventions of photographic practice
• Analyse the content of an externally set brief and make innovative yet appropriate responses.
• Undertake market research into trends and forecasts, together with developments in technology and analyse findings to inform own work.
• Integrate theory and practice by contextualising own work, and cross-referencing with the dissertation. • Be confident in the selection and use of equipment, materials and processes appropriate to the work.
• Compile and present a professional standard portfolio of work.
You must achieve each of these outcomes to achieve a pass grade in this assignment. To see how your final grade has been determined please see the guidance on marking criteria



Weighting: 100%
Word Count/Equivalent

4000 word equivalent between Blog/report and portfolio
Deadline for Submission
Thursday 9th January 2014 @ 12pm.


Brief

Part 1 Practitioner Study
Using guidance and material from lecture and seminar programme, develop a blog investigation into a range of creative practitioners that you are initially unfamiliar with. Develop this as a ‘branched’ investigation with images, biographies and image evaluations. Discuss the functionality and usage of their work, and comment upon work that defines a new or changing role for photography in relation to other visual media.

Part 2 Practical Investigation
Identify processes, techniques or modes of working that are new to you and work on imagery production that develops, refines and combines these practices.
Work towards a professional quality portfolio of images that combines evidence of study and practice from both Parts ready for critique seminar at the end of the Semester.
Present for Submission – A range or series of professional prints in Seminar, not necessarily mounted along with your blog link, to share in the Seminar.
Assessment Criteria
• The ability to make informed, confident decisions, based on research and experience about the nature of their practice and to implement and modify these decisions.
• Analysis of, and appropriate responses to a brief. This may include innovation, commercial viability, and appropriateness for intended market.
• Self motivation and the capacity for working independently and utilising appropriate research skills. Ability to analyse information and draw conclusions.
• The ability to contextualise own work within the field of contemporary photography and dissertation.
• Confidence in selection and use of equipment, materials and processes appropriate to the work produced, and the presentation of a professional standard portfolio.
Assessment Criteria for Practical Work (please see your handbook for complete criteria including fail descriptors)

Distinction 70-100
Excellent : Work meets the criteria
• Fulfils the requirements of the brief with outstanding flair and imagination
• Highly original.
• Evidence of extensive research
• Considered to be of the highest professional standard
• Work of exceptional quality
• Cohesive approach to problem solving
• Innovative idea with excellent execution
• Strong argument for an original position, going beyond the
• Brief requirements - supported by appropriate evidence and reasoning
• Extremely clear and well organised structure
• High level of self motivation and independence
• Strong critical awareness and mastery of problem being addressed
• A creative approach to problem solving
Very Good
• Demonstrates a good understanding of the requirements of the brief
• Well organised and relevant research, analysed and applied
• Evidence of a range of ideas/concepts
• Thorough analysis and critical awareness of issues/problems
• Clear evidence is shown of development and relevant influences
• Effective communication of idea
• Effective solution with minor weaknesses
• Well organised response to guidance
• Good use of technical abilities
• High level of aesthetic quality
• Fit for purpose
• Good standard of presentation
• High level of professionalism
Average-Good
• Satisfies basic requirements of the brief
• Adequate research leading to appropriate solution
• Evidence of idea/concept
• Reasonable analysis of issues/problems
• Some knowledge is shown of relevant influences
• Adequate communication of idea
• Significant weaknesses
• Evidence of response to guidance
• Reasonable use of technical abilities
• Satisfactory level of aesthetic quality
• Satisfactory standard of presentation
• Acceptable level of professionalism
Poor-Adequate
• Demonstrates some understanding of the requirements of the brief
• Limited research leading to an attempted solution
• Superficial idea/concept
• Some attempt at analysis of issues/problems, lapses into misunderstanding
• Insufficient knowledge and understanding of relevant influences
• Some attempt to communicate idea
• Some evidence of study with major weaknesses
• Relies heavily on guidance
• Limited use of technical abilities
• Poor level of aesthetic quality
• Organised but irrelevant
• Poor standard of presentation
• Poor level of professionalism
High 62-69 Commendation
Commendation 50-59
Pass 40-49


Cyanotypes

I have chosen to produce a portfolio of cyanotype images. 
My normal practice is to take analogue images, scan the negatives and make the photograph by digital means. 
In this module I will be carrying out the opposite process - converting a digital image to a negative and making the photograph by analogue means. 

Practitioners

John Herschel 1792 - 1871. Hershel was a mathematician, chemist and astronomer who is credited with the invention of the cyanotype process. He experimented with silver halides and discovered that hypo-sulphate of soda could be used as a fixer making images permanent. he shared his results with Daguerre and Talbot making a major contribution to the development of photography. 

Photo by Sir John Herschel. 'The Honourable Mrs. Leicester Stanhope,' 1836. Cyanotype.

Anna Atkins 1799-1871
Anna Atkins was a botanist, she used cyanotypes to create images of the plants she was studying and writing about. Atkins self-published her photograms in the first instalment of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in October 1843. She is considered to be the first person to publish a book of photographs.

Title page from the book

One the plates from the book

Michel HERIN current practitioner who specialises in gum bichromate and cyanotype images.
http://www.alternativephotography.com/artists/michel_herin/mh_31-b.html

cyanotype self portrait

toned cyanotype

Lynn Andrews current practitioner
http://www.lynnandrewsphotography.com/

Michelle Riendeau
http://www.michelleriendeau.com/

Michelle's images are a development of the photogram. She uses material of differing translucence to block the light to the chemical and create almost 3D prints.


Steve Maniscalco
http://www.stevemphoto.com/photography/cyanotype/

Arthur Wesley Dow
http://www.photoaxe.com/cyanotype-photos-exhibit-in-boston/

Gustavo Castilla
http://www.alternativephotography.com/artists/gustavo_castilla/gc_cyanotype4-b.html

Kelly Hoffart
http://fmphoto.blogspot.com/2007/02/sea-shell.html

Bae Yong Joon
http://jaimezbyj.blogspot.com/2008/03/photographic-art-cyanotype.html

Malin Fabbri
http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/processes/cyanotype/cyanotype-classic-process

Natalie Cheung
http://www.nataliewcheung.com/

I was drawn to Natalie's work by her use of abstract both in the original image and the coating on the paper. The two work together making an organic image unlike anything I've seen before. One of the most important feature of cyanotypes for me is not hiding the process of manually coating the paper. If the paper is coated perfectly without brush strokes, gaps or edges it might as well have been done digitally.




Chris Waller
http://www.bfop.org/events/cyanotype_workshop.html

Michael Kloth
http://news.michaelklothphotography.com/

During a recent visit to Royal Photographic Society International Print Exhibition at the Civic in Barnsley I saw a print which inspired me to begin work on cyanotypes -

Against The Storm by Emma Powell

Emma is a photographer who uses alternative techniques which suit her dream like images. The soft tones in the images explore the ethereal nature of light, nature and sleep.

Her website - http://www.emmapowellphotography.com/

Blog - http://foreveragophoto.blogspot.co.uk/

My initial interest with cyanotypes was to do abstract, still life, macro type images but Emma's images have made me consider their relevance within my field of landscape photography. Her use of tinting takes away the strong blue of traditional cyanotype images.

Into the Light - Emma Powell

The above image has a model as the focal point of the image, my attention and interest was drawn to the rocks behind the model. Their form and texture was enhanced by the cyanotype treatment. I will be experimenting further with cyanotype landscapes in the future.

Cyanotype Photography

Useful articles
http://www.berk-edu.com/Cyanotype_Toning_v2.pdf
cyanotype-printing-with-dr-mike-ware
http://www.alternativephotography.com/




Blueprints
Engineers produced detailed technical drawings of machines etc which provided the specification of components due for manufacture. In the 19th century these drawings began to be reproduced using the cyanotype process. The drawings  were completed on translucent paper and placed over chemically coated paper for duplication. This was much cheaper and quicker than paying a draughtsman to produce duplicates to distribute to the workshops for manufacture.
The process is no longer used as drawings can be produced on the computer but the term blueprint is still in use as the original specification for an item.

Basic Process

Background
The prints are shades of blue and cyan
A photographic process using ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide
The process was discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1842
The current process is basically the same
The “New Cyanotype” substitutes the above chemicals with ammonium iron (III) oxalate, potassium ferricyanide and ammonium dichromate
The light sensitive chemicals they form are the same
It is considered an alternate process and is still used by artists today

Process
Create the negative from a digital photograph
Alternately, use something that has various opacities
If you use something porous, expect that it might be ruined
Mix chemicals per instruction (low light)
Coat paper (or any other media) with chemicals (low light)
Allow the coating to dry (can be done with a hair dryer to speed the process but also should be done in low light)
Take your paper, negative and a piece of glass outdoors (protect the paper from light until you are ready)
Put the paper and negative together and the glass on top of it to hold it together and expose it to the sun for ~ 5 minutes
Wash with water until the yellow is cleared from the print’s borders

Dry

Stronger shadows can be achieved by soaking in a 1% – 2% citric acid for 10 minutes
This may make the print more susceptible to fading
1% nitric or hydrochloric acid will have the same effect on the shadows with a lesser chance of fading but the chemicals are more dangerous to work with
1% Borax (detergent) will fade blue slightly
5% Ammonia will bleach colour completely
Soaking in tea will add brown tones and deepen shadows
The different treatments can be combined sequentially

Toning/Staining Cyanotype Prints

Cyanotypes can be toned to produce several different colours. Unfortunately the process of doing so can be a very hit or miss affair. Do not let this put you off as, with a little patience, experimentation and luck, the results can be well worth the time and trouble involved.

N.B.: If your are going to tone prints that you have previously produced and dried, before toning, soak the prints, briefly, in distilled water at room temperature.

Green

Make a saturated, 20ml, solution of Ferric Protosulphate. Add to this - 4 drops of Sulphuric Acid and then dilute with an equal amount of water (20ml). You should now have 40ml of toner into which the print can be immersed. Once the desired tone has been achieved remove the print and wash in water.

Lilac-violet

Place the print in a solution of borax and water. Wash after the desired tone has been achieved.

Mauve, Grey and Red

This solution will produce all three tones. It's just a question of how long you leave the print in the solution. There are no hard and fast rules to the length of time as there are too many variables. Therefore this has to be done by inspection and it does not always work, but when it does the results can be beautiful. Print darker than usual and then wash for 10 minutes, then immerse in a solution of Copper Nitrate (into which a few drops of ammonia have been added - add drop at a time until the precipitate has redissolved. This bath turns the print first mauve, then grey and then finally red.

Black Toner

Solution A: 3 drops Nitric Acid + 1000 cc. distilled water

Solution B: 14g. Sodium Carbonate + 160 ml. distilled water

Solution C: 14gGallic Acid + 160 ml. distilled water

Soak the print for 5 minutes in water. Immerse it in solution A for 2 minutes. Wash the print in water for 5 minutes. Immerse the print in the solution B and leave it until the image bleaches away and then reappears as a light orange image. Wash the print for at least 10 minutes in water and the place it in solution C. When the image has achieved the required black tone remove and wash for at least 40 minutes in water. Finally allow the print to air dry.

Reddish Brown Highlights with Bluish Grey Shadows

Solution A: 36 g. Tannic acid + 1000 cc. distilled water

Solution B: 18 g. Sodium Carbonate + 1000 cc. distilled water

Solution C: 30 cc. of a 3% Hydrogen Peroxide solution + 1000 cc. distilled water.

Place a pre-soaked cyanotype in solution A for 2 minutes. Wash for 2 minutes water. The print is then immersed in solution B for no longer than 20 seconds. Remove the print and wash for 2 minutes in water. Now place it in solution C until it gets the desired tone is reached. Finally wash the print for at least 30 minutes in order to eliminate any residual chemical from the print and let it air dry.

Staining in Tea solution

The tannic acid in tea is an excellent means of staining cyanotypes brown. Simply prepare a concentrated tea solution (don’t use Earl Grey) and leave the print immersed in this solution until the desired tone is reached. Wash with plain water for 15 minutes and let it dry.

Finally plucked up the courage to have a go myself.

I bought a cyanotype kit from Silverprint to get me started

The kit contained chemicals, clear negative sheets, thick art paper and a brush to coat the paper.

I coated the papers in low light and left them to dry in the dark in my darkroom.

Using an old clip frame I sandwiched negatives and paper before leaving them outside in the sun.

 I chose a seascape digital image which I converted to a black and white negative image in Aperture and printed it on the supplied clear negative sheet. I also found a 5x4 negative which I had discarded as it was blurred as a second practice image.

 The second try on the seascape is an interesting image which now looks a moonscape

The waterfall is overexposed, it was in the same frame as the second seascape but needs a shorter time.

The prints show I need to rethink the drying process, there is a definite tidemark where the wash has drained down to the bottom of the print and hadn't dried properly. I used a darkroom print drying rack.

Need to do

• Buy a UV light source to get consistent timings
• Set up a drying hanger 

Have now got a Phillips Facial Tanner secondhand from eBay and have set up a clothes horse on my darkroom bench so will try again.

Looking much better giving me hope I'm actually getting somewhere.

The subject of the series of photos will be interesting looking parts of an old dismantled Graflex lens.
They were photographed on a product table, lit from both sides by constant tungston lights.
Converted to contrasty black and white images using Silver FX in Aperture.
Negatives made by inverting the images in photoshop elements.
Some of the images -

I'm not sure at this stage whether the images would be better cropped square

Negative ready for printing on A4 transparency film

Unfortunately due to distraction of the dissertation the coated paper went off by the time I had the chance to expose these negatives.
The delay allowed me to rethink the images and decide to use the square format. I also decided to process them with a grainy finish and rough boundaries to give them a border.


New batch of negatives and coated paper.

Images -
They were taken using 50mm lens and extension tubes. The images were then cropped square and converted to black and white using Nik software. Exported to Elements and inverted to make the negatives. The square format suits the subject better, more scope for abstract images.

Negatives -

Heavyweight paper pads bought for coating -

First batch of images

Looking at the prints I need to address the following issues -

Yellow stains, need to wash longer
gaps in the blue, check the whole paper is coated
staining in the corner opposite the hanging point, citric stop and extra wash

Next batch of paper coated with Fotospeed chemicals

The next batch with the Fotospeed chemicals are much more soft toned, there is very little very dark or white areas.

Following feedback from Andy, as I prefer the softer toned results, I need to change the subject of the photographs, he suggests decaying leaves and flowers taken out of their context and shot back lit.

Time to forage!!

Processing the leaves into skeleton leaves

What you will need:

• Leaves (choose large leaves that are colourful, not dried out)
• Washing soda
• Saucepan
• Tweezers
• Paintbrush

What to do:

1. Measure 4 ¼ teaspoons of sodium carbonate (or weigh out 20 g with a balance) into the pan.
2. Dissolve the sodium carbonate in a half litre of water.
3. Heat the mixture on the stove. 
4. When the mixture is almost to a boil and bubbles appear on the surface, take it off the heat, and put the leaves you have selected into the pot. Let them soak for 30 minutes.
5. Remove each leaf carefully from the pot with the tweezers. Gently wash the leaves with cool water. Use a paintbrush to carefully lift away the small bits of leaf cell remaining around the skeleton.

What happened?

The part of the leaf you can see now is a complex pattern of hollow veins making up the leaf's skeleton.  A leaf's veining system provides food and water to the rest of its cells. Since the leaf is no longer getting the nutrients it needs from the ground through the stem of the plant or tree trunk, its tissue will break down easily. 

The above worked well with holly leaves, the other leaves did not break down into a skeleton but became thin and translucent also effective for photography.

  

leaves boiling in the soda

Straight from camera and cropped square

Converted to black and white using Silver FX

converted to negatives in Elements and imported back into Aperture

The final selected images , all taken using Canon 5D DSLR fixed on a tripod, 50mm f/1.8, extension tubes, placed on translucent product table and lit from below by an LED desk lamp - 

Wet leaf flattened under glass, ISO640, f/5.6, 1/30sec

Dry leaf, freestanding, ISO640, f/8, 1/20sec

Dry leaf, freestanding, ISO640, f/16, 1/4sec

Dry leaf, freestanding, ISO640, f/16, 0.5sec

Dry leaf, freestanding, ISO640, f/16, 1sec

Dry leaf, flattened under glass, ISO640, f/11, 1/3sec

All the images were taken in a similar manner, the main alteration being the aperture giving the most appropriate depth of field for each subject. 

The process of producing the final images -

coated paper

negative placed on paper

paper secure under glass propped up in front of UV lamp

Lamp set for 10mins

after exposure - blue exposed area can be seen

removal of negative shows the chemical change in the coating

first wash in clean water 3 mins

yellow water as the chemicals are washed off the paper 

2 mins in the stop bath (weak citric acid solution)

final wash in clean water 5 mins

prints hung to dry over a drip tray

Now I have seen the six images laid out together, I am going to develop the work a little further for the final portfolio. I am going to flip the images to make a mirror image of each one and print from a positive version of each image. This will create a ghost version of each image. In the portfolio they will be displayed opposite each other. Similar to below -

All the prints now done, dried and sitting in the portfolio ready for submission.

Having re examined the prints for submission, I re soaked them and immersed them in washing soda for 2 seconds. this kept the dark intense blue but lightened the highlights improving the contrast of the images without losing any detail in the lighter areas.
I originally over exposed the images to UV to give a rich dark blue but the downside was the lack of highlights which has now been rectified.

As an ongoing project I am going to use the rejected images to experiment on toning.

Toning is best done after the print has been exposed , dried and allowed at least 24hrs to oxidise before further treatment.

Each image will be cut in half to provide a before and after image.
The dry image is soaked in fresh water for 2-3 mins

• Yorkshire Tea, 4 teabags steeped for 10 mins in 1litre of boiling water - 2 test prints, 1 at 5 mins in the tea solution and 1 at 10 mins in the solution. 
• Red Bush Tea, 4 teabags as above. 2 test prints as above.
• Washing soda, 1 tablespoon in a litre of warm water - print immersed for 2 seconds and washed in running water 15mins.
• Domestic bleach, 15ml in a litre of warm water - print immersed for 2 seconds and washed in running water for 15mins.

Yorkshire tea 5mins

Yorkshire tea 10mins

Red Bush 5mins

Red Bush 10mins

2 secs bleach

The results show that there is very little to choose between 5 and 10 mins immersion in the two tea samples. 
The next logical step is to use one of the two bleaching techniques on the tea stained sample to see if the highlights can be brightened and the mauve colour retained instead of the Prussian blue of the original.

2sec immersion in washing soda made very little difference to the prints so the next stage is to cut test strips from the tea stained samples and try different timings.

I will also be looking at different toning substances to get different coloured results.