(A-1), 7:50 to  9:22

Lesson #1  Introduction to B&W Photography

Lesson #2  The Photogram

A Photogram is a photograph made without a camera.   

    The intention of this assignment is to help you to understand that the quality of a photograph as well as all other visual imagery does not derive from the subject alone.  A good photograph is a thoughtful combination of: 1.  Technique (contrast, density, exposure, focus), 2.  Aesthetics (visual point of view, composition, creative approach), 3.  Subject (the meaning - what the image is about - as well as the visual object of our attention).  Just as music is an ordered arrangement of sounds, photography is an ordered arrangement of light.  Musicians learn to control the sounds that their instruments make while photographers learn to control with different instruments - light.

    The PHOTOGRAM that you will create will be made completely in the darkroom, directly on the photo paper, using the enlarger as a light source.  To create the image you will use a combination of three types of objects to manipulate the light.  1. Transparent - Light and detail easily pass through.  Clear like a piece of glass  2.  Translucent -   Light only passes through.  Like a frosted or fogged piece of glass.  3. Opaque - No light passes through.

    Consider the infinite variety of combinations of materials and imagery that you could choose to create.  Remember that your are trying to tell something to the viewer in an ordered fashion of your choosing.  A well thought out or intuitive organization of visual elements purposely placed will have a much greater chance of success than random visual noise.

Your assignment :  Is to create two (2) finished photogram prints to be presented at the assigned critique. For proper print processing refer to B&W Print Processing.    

Visit these links for examples of photograms: http://photoarts.com/gallery/checefsky/index.html, http://www.webgrrls.com/eva/stalking.html . 

Information below is borrowed from www.photogram.com

	What is a PhotoGram?
	The ancients observed the patterns of light and shade caused by the sun and, more vividly, the dancing shadows made by their fires on cave walls. Well over two thousand years ago, the images that were produced by small holes in the shutters covering a window were noticed and described, both in China and Greece. From this phenomenon came the camera, originally a darkened room (camera obscura), later as a portable device which artists could use as an aid to sketching. The first known automatic recording of an image from such a camera took place only two hundred years ago, in research prompted by the Industrial Revolution. Earlier in the eighteenth century several European scientists had discovered and investigated the darkening by light of silver compounds. Thomas Wedgewood, son of Josiah Wedgewood who founded the great pottery company, took up an investigation in the hope that it might provide a way of decorating pottery. He enlisted the help of one of the greatest English scientists of the time, Humphrey Davy and together they produced negative images from drawings, objects and the projected image of a solar microscope on silver nitrate soaked paper and leather. They published their results in 1802, but were unable either to produce positive images or to fix their images to prevent fading when exposed to light. While William Henry Fox Talbot, an English mathematician and scientist was drawing using the camera lucida (a portable development of the camera obscura) on a tour of Italy in the early 1830's he was sufficiently frustrated by his results to decide to engage in the scientific study of photography. Shortly after he was producing prints by placing leaves, flowers, lace and other translucent or opaque materials on 'salted paper' and exposing these to light. A number of these 'photogenic drawings' still exist in museums. One feature of them is the range of colors from pink to purplish brown and yellow of different examples. Experimenters in other countries had produced similar results - for example the Niépce brothers in France in 1816 - but failed to improve the process as Talbot did, firstly by using these negative images in contact with another sheet of salted paper to produce a positive result, and secondly by increasing the sensitivity of the process by the use of a developer making the production of images in camera a practical proposition. (On the other side of the Channel, Jacques L M Daguerre in Paris made a similar breakthrough with his images on metal plates, using mercury vapour to bring out the invisible image.) Following the announcement of their successful processes, first by Daguerre, shortly followed by Talbot, the way was open for many to experiment with photography. John Herschel, hearing of their work but not knowing the details set to work himself and in a few days had produced his own photographs; among the improvements he gave to photography were the name 'photograph' itself and the use of 'hypo' to fix pictures. However until at least the 1950's the word 'photogram' was often used interchangeably with 'photograph' and it is only in more recent years that it has come to its present meaning of images produced by the action of light on photographic materials without a camera. Herschel also worked on and published a series of processes relying on the light sensitivity of iron salts, the best known of which is the cyanotype or blue print. The first photographically illustrated book, published shortly before Talbot's Pencil of Light, was a study of British plants, using photograms made using the cyanotype process by Anna Atkins. These remain in good condition today, unlike many early photographs. Photograms hardly came into the public eye for some eighty years after this, probably generally regarded as a curiosity of little interest. Their re-emergence as a part of the modern movement in art marked a desire to experiment with materials and/or to 'free photography from the tyranny of the lens'. Probably the first to become known was Christian Schad around 1918 with his 'Schadographs' - using collaged material in contact with photographic paper. At the Bauhaus a few years later, processes and materials were all up for experiment, and one of the most basic studies was that of light. Lazlo and Lucia Moholy-Nagy worked on the techniques and produced a large body of photograms (using this name that has stuck.) Across Europe many others were also experimenting - notably Man Ray (About.com feature 09/20/99) in Paris making 'Rayograms', Alexander Rodchenko in Russia, Jaromir Funke in Czechoslovakia, Gyorgy Kepes, Kurt Schwitters, and others. Shortly before the second World War, the Institute of Design (at first called the New Bauhaus) was established in Chicago by Moholy-Nagy and a number of staff and students there carried out work including cameraless imaging and influenced a number of America photographers, including Lotte Jacobi(who came from Berlin to NY) and Barbara Morgan. In the sixties and seventies, many photographers and artists worked in a variety of media, often mixed, including use of photograms.

Lesson #3  The Pinhole Camera

Pinhole photography is making a photograph with a camera that has no lens.

   The Pinhole camera has instead of a lens - a pinhole, which your will make yourself with a - pin.  You will be given the materials and detailed instructions for constructing your own Pinhole Camera during class time.  When your camera is finished your will create full 8"x10" negatives made from your RC photo paper.  When the negative is dry you will use it to create a "contact print" positive directly from that negative using the enlarger as a light source.

Your assignment : Is to make a minimum of two (2) negative and two (2) corresponding positive prints from those negative prints.

Above: A negative on the left and a positive photograph on the right made with a pinhole camera.  Each image is 8"x10".

Below is a diagram of your pinhole camera.

The Finished Pinhole Camera

 

Lesson #3	Day 1	Oct 21	New Assignment:  "Pinhole camera" - build the pinhole camera and create both a negative print (the one in the camera) and a positive print (made in the darkroom from the original negative that was in the camera.  Total due - four prints, two negatives and two positives.  Due: Day 9 Lesson #3 Your assignment : Is to make a minimum of two (2) negative and two (2) corresponding positive prints from those negative prints. Above: A negative on the left and a positive photograph on the right made with a pinhole camera.  Each image is 8"x10". Outside Assignment: "Second Roll" (people)  (include contact sheet) Due:  Day 9 Lesson #3  New Web Search Photographer: "Nadar" (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) Due: Day 9 Lesson #3
	Day 2	Oct 23	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 3	Oct 27	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 4	Oct 29	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 5	Oct 31	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 6	Nov 5	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 7	Nov 10	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 8	Nov 12	Work on current project: Pinhole camera and second roll.  People.
	Day 9	Nov 18	Grade and Discuss Web Search Photographer: "Nadar" (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) Critique and Grade Assignment: "Pinhole camera" Pinhole photographs (two negative and two positive prints.)  Grade Outside Assignment: "Second Roll" (people)

Lesson #4  Stop Action / Blurred Action

    The purpose of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to use and master the shutter feature of your camera.  This assignment has two parts and you will complete two finished prints.

    One image will be of a blurred (Not out of focus.) subject.  As you recall you can blur the image by either the movement of the camera or subject when the shutter is at a setting of approximately 1/60 of a second or slower.  You will produce one finished blurred image for this assignment.

    A second image will be of stopped action.  The viewer must believe, because of the visual clues that you have provided, that something that was moving very quickly is now, because of your use of a shutter speed greater than 1/60 of a second, held in suspension - stopped.  Your will produce one finished print of a stopped action situation to be presented at the critique.

Due at critique: two developed  24 or 36 exposure rolls of film, two contact sheets, and two finished prints.  Mounting is optional for this assignment.  

 

Lesson #4	Day 1	Nov 14	New Assignment: "Stop action, Blurred action" Two finished prints - one mounted.   Due: Day 7 Lesson #4 New Outside Assignment: "Third Roll", (things) Due: Day 7 Lesson #4 New Web Search Photographer: Edward S. Curtis, Due: Day 7 Lesson #4
	Day 2	Nov 20	Work on current project: Stop / Blur
	Day 3	Nov 24	Work on current project: Stop / Blur
	Day 4	Dec 1	Work on current project: Stop / Blur
	Demo	Dec 3	Print Mounting Demonstration: Take extensive notes.  Photo students will be required to mount all assignments beginning with Lesson #5.  Mounting for this assignment "snapshot" is optional.
	Day 5	Dec 5	Work on current project: Stop / Blur
	Day 6	Dec 9	Work on current project: Stop / Blur
	Day 7	Dec 11	Grade and Discuss Web Search Photographer: Edward S. Curtis Critique and Grade Assignment: "Stop action, Blurred action" Two finished prints - Optional  mounted print. Grade Outside Assignment:  "Third Roll" (things).

The Sabattier Process or effect  was first described by Armand Sabattier in 1862 and has since carried his name.  Prints produced with this process have the unusual characteristics of both positive and negative prints.  Where areas of high contrast existed on the original, what are called "Mackie" lines appear. The Sabattier effect is not to be confused with "Solarization" which is a similar process whereby processing "film" is exposed to light.

Look at the examples below (thanks to Greg Stoermer, Class of 2002)

Ex.#1 is a finished Sabattier Print

Example #2 is made by using example #1 as a negative and printing through #1 on to a new sheet of photo paper.

    Simply, the Sabattier effect occurs whenever a developing print is exposed to light.  Below is a chart to reproduce the effect in a controlled, repeatable way. 

Test Print 

Materials needed.  A negative of normal to high contrast.   Normal print processing chemicals.  High contrast paper. ( With multigrade papers use a #5 filter.)

First Exposure.  1. Place a higher than normal contrast negative in the negative carrier.  2. Open aperture to largest opening. (allowing the most light through)  3. Focus the negative carefully using the grain focuser.  4. Stop down aperture to f8.  5. Place #5 filter in filter carrier.  6. Place unexposed piece of paper in printing easel.  7. Set timer to two (2) second intervals.  8. Using an opaque (black) piece of card or construction paper make approximately ten (10) vertical (left to right or right to left) tests on that full sheet of paper.  9. Remove the paper from the printing easel and fully develop the print in the prepared Dektol for the normal time (1:30 for RC paper, 2:00 for FB).  Drain the print completely of developer then rinse the print thoroughly in the running water (not a chemical stop bath) bath.  Squeegee the print.  A well rinsed and squeegeed print will be less likely to have streaks.  10. Return the print to the printing easel. 

Second Exposure.  1. Remove the negative from the negative carrier.   2. Remove the #5 filter from the filter carrier.  3. Stop down the aperture to f16.  4.  Use your opaque card again to make test strips - this time horizontally, up or down - again at two (2) second intervals.  Make approximately ten (10) two second horizontal (up or down) exposures).  You will notice the darkening of the paper as you proceed.  This is normal and expected.   5.  Develop the print for the normal time in the Dektol developer and drain as usual.  6.  This time use the chemical stop bath at the completion of developing.  Stop bath for 30 seconds as usual.  7.  Fix for the usual time depending upon your paper type.  8.  Rinse, wash and dry as usual.

View the test print in normal light - Never judge a test or print in darkroom light.  Your test print will now look like a dark group of blocks.   Choose the one you think has the best combination of Mackie lines, dark and light values, and blacks and whites.  Once you have selected your favorite/best block,   determine the first exposure for the final print by counting two (2) seconds for each of the first series of tests from the lightest side of the print to the block you have chosen.  This should be from the vertical (left to right) group.  Remember that the last exposure that you made will have been exposed to light the least amount of time (only 2 seconds) so you must count from the lightest side of the print to your selected strip/block to determine the time of that strip's exposure to light.  Now do the same for the horizontal or top to bottom tests.  Remember to start counting from the lightest strip to the chosen strip/block.  Write down these two times and make sure not to confuse them.  Now return to the darkroom to make the final Sabattier print. 

Making the final or presentation Sabattier print.  

First exposure.  Everything is the same except steps #7 and #8.   Replace this step by setting the timer to the first time that you selected from your test print from the vertical-left to right group.  Continue as before on the the....

Second exposure.  Proceed exactly as before with the exception of step #4.  This time use the time you determined for the second exposure from your test print.  Continue until complete then once again view the print under normal white light conditions.  If you feel the times should be adjusted consult your test print and then make another print.

 Lesson #5 - Color Basics and Darkroom Shapes

Lesson # 6,  Experimental Color and Printing.

 

Final
	Port	May 7	Senior Portfolio Review
		May 11	Senior Mass followed by sand volleyball for seniors.
	Port	May 13	Work day for juniors
	Final	May 15	Junior individual portfolio review
	Final	May 21	Junior portfolio due / final clean-up