Camera’s come in medium and large format, however films come in many different sizes, depending on what size you’d like your pictures developed.
120mm roll film is medium format, as well as 35mm cassette.
There are 5 common film sizes;
4x5 is LARGE format.
There are obviously good reasons as to why there are different formats;
Camera Format | Film Size | Advantages | Dis-advantages | Applications |
35mm | 35mm | It’s incredibly affordable Adaptable Portable There’s 36 prints per roll | Limited quality | Family photo’s Sport photo’s |
Medium | 120 film | Can be portable Good quality Adaptable 16.3 prints per roll | Very expensive Not easily portable | Studio- Fashion Portrait landscape |
Large | 5 x 8 10 x 8 | Excellent quality | Very expensive Not portable Only 2 sheets per slice. | Studio-advertisements Pack shots- food Landscapes |
The RB67 camera is a medium format camera, the ‘67’ in its name stands for the size of the camera. It is good for studio work; fashion, portrait, or landscapes. It’s portable, therefore can be moved about if needed.
The first model came out in 1970 it was called the RB67 pro and was made until 1974, the camera has several minor changes made to it and was renames RB67 pro-S. This was produced until 1990, where further changes were made and again renamed RB69 pro-SD. The pro-SD was still being made and sold until the early 2000’s. The camera has hardly changed over the past 30 years, it still has it’s basic format throughout all models. It has remained the work house camera of all professional studio photographers.
Large format camera:
Large format camera prints only two photo’s per slide, it prints 4x5 and is perfect for landscape photography.
The main reason people choose large format cameras is because the print sizes are the biggest and best quality, the format stretches to 20x24 inches. The film comes in separate sheets, rather than rolls of film which can be a big advantage as a picture is set up properly before taking, less wasted prints. The lense is much more adaptable, the camera allows a range of lenses to enable pretty much any photo to be taken on this camera. The results on a large format camera are much sharper than a medium format camera.
With a large format camera you can use as many types of film as you life, even Polaroid, and process each film individually.
How to operate a large format camera:
- Choose the camera position, approximate orientation, focal length.
- Set up and level the tripod and camera.
- Attach the lens and open it to full aperture.
- Focus roughly using the focussing knob.
- Adjust precisely the composition while looking at the ground glass.
- Focus precisely with tilts/swings.
- Determine the optimal aperture.
- Re-adjust slightly the composition (optional but recommended).
- Adjust filters and compendium shade (optional but recommended).
- Check for vignetting (optional but recommended).
- Close the lens, cock the shutter, rap and insert the film holder.
- Determine the shutter speed.
- Set the aperture and shutter speed.
- Remove the dark slide.
- Look at the subject.
- Fire the shutter with a cable release.
- Put the darkslide back in.
- Remove the filmholder.
- Make a second identical exposure (optional but recommended).
- Pack and move to the next spot.
Self portrait photography
For this assignment I am going to research into the history of two self portrait photographer, I have chosen to look at Cindy Sherman and Larry Clark. I admire their work and feel it has true meaning within the photography world.
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer, also known for her film directing, she was born January 19th 1954. Through her work she has raised issues about the representation of women in society.
Cindy started off her career at Buffalo college where she studied vidual arts, she loved painting, however was more than irritated by the ‘limitations’ in the course. At that point she gave up painting and took up photography. Cindy said “there was nothing more to say through painting” which is why she gave up the course. She later said “I was meticulously copying other art when I could be putting my time into an idea instead” She was a very broad minded woman, later on in her photography career she developed her own edge, she photographed herself in different situations .
"One of the reasons I started photographing myself was that supposedly in the Spring one of my teachers would take the class out to a place near Buffalo where there were waterfalls and everybody romps around without clothes on and takes pictures of each other. I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this. But if we’re going to have to go to the woods I better deal with it early.’ Luckily we never had to do that.”
Before starting her photography career she finished her course she studied the course with Barbara Jo Revelle, Barbara introduced Cindy to the conceptual art and other contemporary forms. Cindy credits her knowledge of this to Barbara.
Cindy works alone and always has, she loves to create her own ideas and be able to direct, shoot, print, and star in all of her own photography. She is famous for her outstanding work; shooting herself in a range of costumes. She does her own hair and make up and her own costumes, the most incredibly thing about her work is that she never looks the same in any of her prints.
Bus Riders are a series of photographs that Cindy shot that star a range of people that are ‘sitting at a bus stop’. These photographs were shot in 1976 the series was entitles ‘Murder Mystery Peoples’ these photographs weren’t printed until 2000 when they were exhibited with some more of her work.
Cindy uses her costume and make up to transform dull images of herself into outstanding unique portraits of fictional characters. The complete untitled film stills’ series was her landmark photography series, where she created fictional characters from fictional films and portrayed that within on still image. There photographs were taken between 1977 and 1980. Cindy doesn’t believe that her role within the photographs is ‘actress’ she says , “I never thought I was acting. When I became involved with close-ups I needed more information in the expression. I couldn’t depend on background or atmosphere. I wanted the story to come from the face. Somehow the acting just happened.”
When shooting this series she modelled as many different and unique roles, Cindy reveals gender as an unstable and constructed position. The pictures suggest that there is real identity within the women. They are all taken from different angles, in different clothing, different make up, featured in a different set and Cindy uses all these aspects of her photographs to give her characters a real personality. She uses characters such as; an immature school girl, an attractive mature woman, a glamour diva. Her work encourages self reflection within women. She says “I’m trying to make other women recognise something in themselves rather than in me” Cindy doesn’t consider her own work feminist, however she focus’ a lot of her work on the stereotypical views of women in the media.
In her work she is hidden, Cindy reveals the personality of the character that is being portrayed in the photograph, she is never seen. All of her characters are nameless therefore we never see ‘the whole picture’ however it think in this case we’re not supposed to, we see the women in the photographs and that is all we are supposed to see. We adapt ourselves to the situations we see in the photo’s, the costume make up and set, and from that we adopt an opinon and create their personality in our own heads.
The Untitled film stills are put into six groups;
· The first six photographs are slightly out of focus and Cindy creates one Blonde actress to play a different role in each photograph. E.g. Untitled 4;
The next group of photo’s was taken at a beach house in north fork of Long Island in 1978. The beach house belonged to her boyfriend Robert Longo.
· Later in 1978, Cindy took some hots in outdoor locations, she liked the city effect in her photo’s, it gave the characters more life. E.g Untitled Film Still #21
· She took several photographs whilst on holiday in Arizona, and some during the journey. This still was shot whilst travelling there. She named this still ‘The Hitchhiker’ Untitled Film Still #48;
· The rest of the series was shot around New York. Many of the prints feature a blonde character. Untitled #54;
In December 1995 The Museum Of Modern Art purchased all 69 prints for an estimated $1 Million.
Lawrence Clark (Larry) was born January 19th 1943, he is better known for his directing work, however is also a very well known and highly respected photographer. His most famous piece of photography is his book ‘Tulsa’. He focus’ his work on youths involving themselves in activities such as; illegal drug use,sex, and alcohol intake.
Larry’s mother studied photography and started up a family business, she focused in baby photography, When Larry turned 13 he was then enlisted into the family business. Larry began injecting with his friends when he was in his teenage years, he injected amphetamines, in 1959. From 1963 to 1971 Larry took his camera everywhere with him, which gave him the ultimate opportunity to capture his drug and alcohol use on camera, which is what he did. The pictures were incredible, they were erotic, intimate and so real; 
His photographs were beautifully taken. They were taken between 1963 and 1971. They were later published in the book Tulsa. The photographs follow the trauma’s of three young men through ecstasy and idealism to paranoia. In his later life Clark decided to carry on his passion of photographing teens in their traumatic lives involving drugs sex and alcohol, he involved himself with some teenage boys and used them as his subjects in Teenage Lust in 1983 he carried on his successful genre in Tulsa and mirrored it in his new series of work. He then focused his work on ‘male hustlers’ in The perfect childhood in 1992. Clark looked at tabloid teen criminals and teen models in his other series Skaters, he captured the community of skateboarders in Ney York. He likes to set a theme and relate a series of his work to that one theme. He focus’ his themes on male teenage life.
Clark uses sexual and explicit imagery for his work. Some people may find it shocking oto look at or disturbing, other find it beautiful. The photo’s are very graphic photographs of sex, drugs, alcohol and violence. His work may be shocking but it is unforgettable and definitely has an impact on the people that like and study his work. “ Reflecting the mission if the International Centre of Photography ‘This exhibition presents Clarks work that may have been misunderstood. The work that has meaning in teen violence, sex, pornography, masculinity, censorship, all topics that are socially relevant to the audience, the exhibition was set up to give audiences the chance to hear about why these photographs were taken and hopefully change the views within the media.
Planning:
Planning:
In order to carry out my photo shoot I need to think about the following;
· Lighting
· Camera format
· Costume
· Props
· How I want myself to be portrayed in the image.
I started off my planning by deciding what camera format to use, It was a hard decision as I originally wanted an image taken outside, however the medium and large format camera’s make that very difficult. I decided that I wanted quality over background. When choosing between large and medium format I didn’t find this hard I decided to use large format because I wanted a higher quality picture, and I knew that I would only get the highest and best quality by using large format. If I had been taking a number of photo’s I probably would have chosen medium because you get 16 photo’s per roll however in this photo shoot I am only taking one photo, so the quantity didn’t need to be considered.
Before deciding on costumes and props I thought about how I wanted to portray myself, I really just wanted a straight face of just me. I wore clothes that I would wear everyday and a headband in my hair, I just wanted a very casual picture, portraying me as I am from day to day. I didn’t use any props for the same reason.
The last factor to be considered was the lighting, I knew I wanted only half of my face lit, so I adjusted the lighting once I was on set. I was happy with the way the picture was printed.
I then scanned my image onto photo shop and had to think up s statement to go with my image. I started off by cleaning up the image a little, and colouring in the headband. I like the effect that only the headband was in colour. It fely like something was missing so I copied the image and mirrored it so that there were two, it looked a lot better but too neat, so I made the second image smaller which looked a lot more interesting. I coloured the other headband in another colour to make it a little more interesting. I really liked my image, so there was only text to fin now. When looking at the almost finished page the first word I thought of was loneliness. I asked 5 other people what their views were and they all said the same thing. I went onto the internet and found some quotes about loneliness. My first idea was to have the words ‘This is your world’ so I put both in, this is my bold statement but in the bottom left hand corner I had the quote ‘the worst thing about loneliness is coming face to face with oneself’ I liked this quote I thought it had a lot of depth and meaning. Choosing the font was fairly simple, for the quote I wanted something very simple that stood out. And for the bold statement I chose something a little more interesting. I doubled the bold statement and used grey and white to make it a little more interesting. I kept the colours basic and the lighting dark, it gives off the impression that she is hidden and I liked that idea.
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| 1st draft |
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| 2nd draft |
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| Final Draft |
Evaluation:
For this assignment I had to take a photo of myself how I like to be portrayed to other people, and right a status about it on a double page spread that I am going to create.
My final draft of my double page spread, doesn’t portray me how I would have liked. However the text and the picture definitely fit well together.
To take the photo’s I had to choose a type of camera that I wanted to use, I chose a large format camera because it results in having the highest quality pictures. The camera I used was a RB67, it was fairly simple to use and definitely gave me great results.
This assignment has been enjoyable, i think time was obviously I big draw back. I didn’t lose out on any time because I knew right from the beginning that I only had two lessons to prepare shoot and create the double page spread. I managed to complete it quite easily within the time and reach the deadline.
However I think this assignment would be more beneficial if we were to have a longer time period to complete it in. This would give me the opportunity to take a variety of pictures and experiment more in Photoshop.
Strengths:
I think my final draft was well made, I still struggle with new things in photoshop however I think when I am putting a double page spread together like I think one I find it quite simple to use therefore I think that is a strength of mine
Taking the photo was quick and simple, I know how to use a camera and using the grid aswell, I find this simple and I enjoy taking photo’s.
Weaknesses:
Printing the photo was a weakness of mine, I seem to forget every time and have to ask a tutpr to explain it again. It is just something that I haven’t got the hang of yet, however I hope to improve this in the future.
