Experimentation

I experimented with a range of different techniques in the darkroom. The first experiment was with bending the paper to create a distorted image. The first image is the original image.To distort the image I placed four lead weights by the four corners on a piece of photographic paper under the enlarger,I then bent the paper so that it was bent upwards. I refocused the image on the highest point of the paper and exposed the image for 12 seconds on f16 with filter 5.This makes the image bend in the opposite way, inwards. I then experimented with bending it inwards to see what outcome it produced. This made the image concave. Below are all my experiments of this technique. 

I wondered what would happen if I put water onto a piece of paper, whether the image would be distorted. I also drizzled some washing up liquid onto the photographic paper as it is denser than water. In the first image the water is not visible on the paper but the washing up liquid made areas of the photograph lighter. In the second image I dripped the paper with stop and fix. The fix is the lighter splashes and the stop is the darker image. This creates an effect on rain droplets, I think this would work particularly well with a snow scene photograph.

I had experimented with handmade negatives before and really enjoyed it so I wanted to take it a step further by combining hand made negatives and an image. Firstly I did a test strip of my hand made negative so that I knew how long to expose it for. I then took away 4 from 12 and exposed my house image to the photographic paper. Next I placed the paper under a different enlarger with my handmade negative and exposed it for 4 seconds. They came out quite dark in each image I did and was not sure why. I tried exposing the hand made negative first instead of last to see if this made a difference but it didn't.

I wanted to get the hand made negatives and prints to come out well so I experimented again in the darkroom. This time I used food colouring instead of washing up liquid which made it harder for the light to go through. I think this worked better than my previous attempt as you can see more of the image and it also gives it an effect of being destroyed or burnt.