The seventh lesson of Artefact Unit

Today I was aiming to finish my final shots and make them in the dark room (printing room). Before the break I decided to add some more things to my 'Shooting Plan'. I added things such as where I am going to shoot my final work and why. I found this part easy because I looked at the test shots and I used them as my guide for the final work. When I took the test shots I found that 'lonely people' would fit in the theme very well, so I used these kinds of pictures. I think that lonely people represent the other side of Christmas.

After the break I went to take pictures with the tape camera. I was pleased that our teacher reminded me how to use it, because the last time I used it was about 4 weeks ago. First place I went to was the park, and I was aiming to find 'lonely people' sitting in the benches, but unfortunately there were no people which I could take pictures of. I decided not to waste time and go to take some pictures of broken things and overflowing bins. I found this easy because there were a lot of bins in the area, because the area is quite full of houses. I returned to the park to find some 'lonely people' because I still had some more time. Fortunately I found a couple of people and I took pictures of them. I was very relieved because I had a lot of pictures which meant I could choose which ones to use. I found this part a bit weird because I had to take pictures of 'strangers', but in the end I did it.

Before the lunch I started to prepare the tape, using the same method as before. Unfortunately I forgot some parts of the process because I've only done this once. I asked my teacher for help sometimes and he really helped me with the preparation of the tape. I didn't have time to completely finish the preparation so I left the tape in the container over lunch, with water inside so it doesn’t dry out. After lunch I came back and finished the process and the tape came out as I planned it to come out. I found this process I bit hard and also not so interesting because I had to wait for the tape to react with chemicals and also later on to dry out. I had to use the hair dryer to dry the tape because that was the fastest way of doing it. It took me about 15 minutes to do it.

The last part I had to do was to print the pictures on the white paper. I had a lot of pictures taken on the tape which meant this would take me a lot of time. I found it easier than the least time because there were less people around which meant less people were using the chemicals. Also, it was easier to find my pictures when I had to take them out of the chemicals, because there were less pictures there. I found this process hard at start because my pictures came out too dark, to solve this problem I didn’t keep the white paper under the light for 4 seconds, but 3. This really helped because my pictures came out lighter and looked better. I also had dry bubbles on my pictures, and I asked the teacher what they were. They were from chemicals which meant I had to put the picture under the chemicals more, otherwise I get them on all of the pictures. After that I found the process easy because I knew how to do it, but it still took time because I had to wait for the pictures to react with the chemicals. I nearly finished printing all of the pictures, but unfortunately I've got about 3 more to go. Next Artefact Unit day, I will try to print some more pictures and for the rest of the day I will assemble my project as planned. I think I have done everything I've planned to do and I am on track with the project.