Project 6: Photography II Time Exercise 2: Trace

There are two parts to this exercise: research and photography. As with Exercise 1, the focus is on recording movement in a still image, however, where the previous task was to freeze a moment in time, for this exercise it is to capture the sense of movement within the two dimensional frame.

I began by following up some of the references from the OCA material. I was particularly interested to learn more about the photography of the person who used the tremor of Parkinson’s disease as a photographic technique to show both the effect of the condition and the sense of movement of traffic at night. However, the OCA hasn’t referenced the image and my attempts to search for it drew a blank. I did find information on other photographers with Parkinson’s desease though. I was particularly struck by this image from Jay Zuckerkorn’s series, “Movement Disorder”, which is a series of photos of people on the beach, with the blur from tremor being the primary approach.

Jay Zuckerkorn, “Movement Disorder” at https://www.jzukerkorn.com/movement/2015/5/21/2015/5/21/hgwuqmjrtk4mu69limmknzpzcfukxg

This image, while tending to the abstract, is clearly an image of people on the beach. The composition and mastery of the form are outstanding and it is immediately obvious that the blur is an intentional and integral feature of the image. If I were to pursue photography further, I would be interested to see whether I could experiment to find a way of using my visual impairment as a positive tool in my composition in the way that these photographers have embodied their Parkinson’s. 

I also had a look at strip scan photigraphy, which seems to be synonymous with slit scan photography. I came across two distinct practices which share the name. The first uses a ramp for the camera to approach a light source, so, rather than the subject moving, it’s the camera that is in movement, but in a more controlled manner than with the example of tremor. This action is repeated numerous times in order to create animations. The other method is to backlight a two dimensional image on a transparent substrate and take an image through one or more slits. This sounds more within the realms of possibility for people without a film studio, and there are tutorials online on how to make your own slit scan loom camera, such as here: https://www.lomography.com/magazine/283280-making-a-slit-scan-camera

Additionally, a friend who is a keen amateur photographer came round for an hour and told me all about how my camera works. I’ve read instructions and tutorials and learned a certain amount, but it was of enormous benefit to have someone sit with me and show me how it all applies to my own camera. He talked through this diagram that he brought for me and noted down some sample settings  I now feel more confident about how my camera works and how to achieve better the effects I’m aiming for.

When I came to take my own photos I employed three techniques. In all three I used shutter priority and long exposure times. Firstly, I used a tripod and photographed my camera friend as he was moving, in order to achieve an image of him blurred in motion against an in focus background. I then took photos of my stair rails and a bottle of washing up liquid intentionally moving the camera to create movement blur. Lastly, I used the same technique to photograph my candles, but then kept the camera still and photographed the candles whilst blowing the flames so that the candles were still but the flames were in movement.

Here is my initial contact sheet.

We are asked to annotate our contact sheets but I can’t do this in a way that is big enough for me to read my notes in such confined space, so I will describe my process. Having imported my photos from the camera, I created a new album for them, and then proceeded with a process of elimination to arrive at my final selection. First I removed 8 images that were technically poor: the composition was wrong (not easy to control the composition the camera chooses when the camera is in movement while the shutter is open). Then, where there were two or more similar images, I chose to keep one or two that had the right kind of blur in the right kind of places, and removed the others. This was mostly a matter of what was more aesthetically pleasing, although where one image had parts in sharper focus I chose those. That left me with 15  I decided to aim at two from each subject I’d photographed  I cropped and made minor edits to all of these, then chose from them the eight which were most diverse from one another, and that I just preferred  

These two were taken using a mini tripod to avoid camera shake with the longer shutter speed.

For the following two I moved the camera vertically while the shutter was open.

These two are close-ups of a bottle of washing up liquid  I moved the camera from side to side during the shot. The washing up liquid, which is translucent, adds its own distortions to the other objects in view, particularly in the second shot. 

For the first candle photo I moved the camera in a jerky manner, which caused these shadowy copies of the more defined central part. In the second shot I held the camera steady whilst gently blowing the flames so that the candles were still but the flames were in movement. I was pleased with this image because the subjects are in focus yet there is a visible movement too.

Overall I enjoyed this exercise more than I expected to. I think this is partly because I feel more familiar with my camera, and partly because I could choose how to explore this area without having been given specific instructions. This made me feel less constrained or that I had to ‘get it right[. As I limited myself to images I could take at home, I became more inventive with my approaches, such as blowing the candle flames. The anxiety I felt at the end of Project 5 is beginning to ebb away.