A few comments on experimentation in photography.

[Stephanie Brim]

I've always experimented in my photography. Some things have worked and some things haven't. The most memorable mistake I've made is developing a 35mm roll of Fuji Superia 400 in the same tank as a roll of TMAX 100, at the same time, because I thought it was another roll of the TMAX. Weirdly, the images turned out. In fact, I'd go so far to say that most of them were very nice images, and some even benefited from the slightly pinkish tone the whites took on when scanned. I never tried printing them because I had no access to a darkroom, and I had no printer either. It was only my second time developing film.

Fast forward to now, and my recent adoption of large format. I'm wanting to get more serious about photography and focus more on studio work than the grab shots I've done previously. I'll be doing a lot of things for the first time: printing, still life, studio portraiture, large format. It's a lot to learn at once, but I am up to the challenge, however considerable it may be.

However, I *am* concerned about one thing: I do not want to lose my experimental nature in chasing the perfect image. I think that's why I'm buying cheap mystery lenses. I think that's why I decided that I'd stick with shooting mostly expired or short dated film. I think that's why I'm itching to try the Efke Positive paper even though most have said that it's way too contrasty.

Some responses I've gotten here and otherwhere lately make me think that a lot of people discourage experimentation. I don't think that should be the case for a few reasons. I'll try to explain to the best of my ability.

I'm a young person. I turn 25 on the 15th. The future of film will be, eventually, left to me. I take that seriously. Film is something I've enjoyed for almost 10 years now, and I hope to enjoy it for many, many more to come. I hope my children will get to enjoy it. One of the things that brought me to film was the ability to readily experiment with different factors. Overexposure, underexposure, overdevelopment, underdevelopment, paper negatives, pinhole cameras, plastic fantastic cameras, old lenses with no names, cheap one elements of who-knows-what origin...this is the stuff I'm interested in. While I may not always get great results with these things, everything I've gotten from them is a learning experience and valuable. Large format is a veritable treasure trove of experiments waiting to happen. I want to giggle like a little school girl when I think of all the fun I can have with barrel lenses and older lenses and the various films and contact printing and alternative processes. I want to be serious about my work, sure, but I don't want to stop having fun with photography.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

I have a Rodenstock Geronar in my possession. It will be my normal lens on my Graphic View. It's a pretty average setup. It will work well for multiple types of shooting. For the other stuff, I'll have the Ilex whatsit, the Rank Taylor Hobson (apparently) POS, and, possibly, one other cheap lens of unknown origin. All will be used for serious photography, but for different reasons. And I'll have fun with them all. Because, in my mind, that's all it's about.

I'd like to sell some stuff, sure. Making money off of photography would be great, and it would make my boyfriend realize that there *is* something to this whole thing I'm interested in. But it isn't the first and foremost goal. The first goal is expressing myself and putting the images out there that *I'm* proud of, whether they're made with the newest $1500 lens or the $.99 crapastigmat I bought off Ebay. The end result is what matters.

So this is why I do this crazy stuff. Just figured that, if I'm going to be spending lots of time around here, you should know. :)

[Nick_3536]

I'm guessing you've misunderstood some of the comments. Nobody is discouraging experimenting. It's just we've made many of the screw ups ourselves.

You'll find plenty of wierd and strange ideas here that have resulted in great results. But you'll find others that don't.

[Stephanie Brim]

I just wanted to let people know where I stand.

I don't consider them screw-ups, really. They're valuable learning tools. ;)

In any case, I really hope to be able to add valuable insight occasionally once I've gotten the hang of things. I'm finding using a large format camera very similar to smaller format in ways, but very different in others, as I'm sure most people did when they started. I hope to share many "mistakes" with you all. :)

[Daniel_Buck]

So this is why I do this crazy stuff. Just figured that, if I'm going to be spending lots of time around here, you should know. :)
I think you are along the same wavelength as quite a few others here, myself included. Sure, I enjoy making (er, trying to make?) the "perfect image" that I know exactly what it's going to turn out like. But experimentation is fun, and the unknown is enticing :) Maybe some of us on the younger side of the curve tend to do this a bit more often than others who are more rooted in their photography? Maybe so? Maybe not.

One of the first photos I took when I got my speed graphic was rapidly rotating the entire camera as I clicked the focal plane shutter, and ended up with this :)

http://www.buckshotsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/speedgraphic_01.jpg

[Gordon Moat]

Glad to see I am not the only one experimenting. My usual short comment to other people is that I do many things with film that one is technically not supposed to do. At one time, I was doing so much push or pull processing at one point that the main lab I use started putting "process normally" on the few that needed normal processing.

You might also want to try playing with Polaroids, if you have not done that already. While Polaroid materials are disappearing, some of the techniques can be adjusted for use with Fuji Instant films.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Greg Lockrey]

And we can always call it part of our "artistic vision". ;)

[Dan Fromm]

Different people learn in different ways. And no two of us have the same preferences.

Stephanie, the only substantive criticism I'd make of you is that it isn't clear you've learned how to learn efficiently.

Otherwise, as long as you're happy with what you're doing, I'm happy for you.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think the desire to experiment is one of the things that attracts many people to large format. It's a more flexible set of tools than, say, a rigid-body camera with a proprietary lens mount or a format that tends to demand enlargement and makes it harder to experiment with contact-printing processes. You're in the right place.

[MenacingTourist]

If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly :)

[jnanian]

have fun stephanie,
and enjoy your "mistakes", you will
learn from and enjoy making them the most.

john

[Ron Marshall]

Have fun with your photography, that's the key!

[wfwhitaker]

It's all about individuality and creative expression. It's not like you're using stem cells.

[Ed Richards]

This photographer builds homemade cameras from vintage parts and household goods for her work:

http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/burnstine/index.htm

Seems to work pretty well, so maybe you are on to something.

[Stephanie Brim]

See, that's what I'm talking about.

The most haunting images I've ever see, those that stay with me, are not technically perfect. They're compositionally interesting, but there's a lot that can be found "wrong" with them.


Stephanie, the only substantive criticism I'd make of you is that it isn't clear you've learned how to learn efficiently.

And I have criticism of this as well, while we're on the subject of learning.

People learn in different ways. This would apply if there was one true way to learn, but history and my experience working with kids has taught me otherwise. I learn plenty efficiently for me. I tend to learn fast from mistakes, but sometimes my "mistakes" lead me to other interesting experiments and my learning starts all over again.

You must make mistakes *yourself* in order to learn. Learning from others' mistakes works, but I've never really been completely satisfied that their conclusion it *was* a mistake would also be my conclusion.

If you get me.

[Gordon Moat]

I had someone once comment on my Polaroid manipulations that the little flaws in them indicated that they were worked by hand. I think in the same way, digital imaging has often been about ultra clean perfection, and sometimes those little flaws in film remind us about the extra work. Humans are imperfect, so perhaps there is the appeal.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[paulr]

I do not want to lose my experimental nature in chasing the perfect image.

That might be your central dilemma. Think about what you mean by "the perfect image." For a some people, it means an image that conforms to a lot of pre-existing standards, some of which they might or might not be conscious of.

This kind of perfectionism kills creativity. And an experimental nature is just one part of creativity.

If you open up your goal -- make sure you're seeking YOUR image, and not some inherited idea of a perfect image -- then i don't think you'll have anything to worry about.

[Miguel Coquis]

I'm a young person. I turn 25 on the 15th. The future of film will be, eventually, left to me. I take that seriously. Film is something I've enjoyed for almost 10 years now, and I hope to enjoy it for many, many more to come. I hope my children will get to enjoy it.
So this is why I do this crazy stuff. Just figured that, if I'm going to be spending lots of time around here, you should know. :)

Hope you will remind young somewhere in yourself. What may be interesting is to follow the "process of seeing". One can see itself growing through the "photographic experience". In some way, you keep for you what is good and put all this in one side and put in another side (or throw away) what is not. Later, when you look at all the good things and put them together, this can be an open creative source. There is a space for "memory" that is constantly being nourished with all kind of impressions. Through camera work one can better recognize some of this impressions and find some order for them.
Bon courage !

[Donald Miller]

While creativity, doing one's "own thing", can at first seem to be an exciting adventure...in reality that only comes when someone has the rudimentary skills to begin to use them effectively...for instance, if one has no concept of composition or the elements inherent in composition, balance in the image...the different types of balance and the different aspects of form then one can run around making images that while different from the norm may totally miss the mark so far as having meaning for anyone including the person "doing his/her own thing".

I strongly believe that to make meaningful photographs, one needs to live some degree of life in order to recognize the condition of life that most human beings experience. What things do human beings experience? Does the photographer recognize them well enough to know how to capture those on film? What I mean is there are things more universal than seeing trees, rocks, mountains and streams. How about loss, triumph, grief, sorrow, joy, happiness, despair, fear and any of the other assorted and sundry things that make life as a human being imminently alive? Someone once wrote that it takes 57 years to make a human being...I thought at the time, some years ago, that they were full of crap for saying that...yet today I know that is pretty darn true in my direct personal experience.

As an example, an aspiring musical composer could sit at a piano for years attempting to write the next "great score" and if he/or she had no knowledge of the need for rests in music they may have only sound that seems noisy at best.

As in all things there is balance here...there are those things that are called beginnings and there are those called endings and there is that God awful soul searching angst between the two.

[r.e.]

Some responses I've gotten here and otherwhere lately make me think that a lot of people discourage experimentation.

Despite what some people in this thread have said, you are not imagining this.

If you want to experiment, I think that the best site to follow is cinematography.com. There are people on that site who are being paid real money to do things that are truly interesting, and that are transferable to still photography.

Much of what you read on this site is extremely conservative, and not representative of where photography is going.

[Dan Fromm]

See, that's what I'm talking about.

The most haunting images I've ever see, those that stay with me, are not technically perfect. They're compositionally interesting, but there's a lot that can be found "wrong" with them.



And I have criticism of this as well, while we're on the subject of learning.

People learn in different ways. This would apply if there was one true way to learn, but history and my experience working with kids has taught me otherwise. I learn plenty efficiently for me. I tend to learn fast from mistakes, but sometimes my "mistakes" lead me to other interesting experiments and my learning starts all over again.

You must make mistakes *yourself* in order to learn. Learning from others' mistakes works, but I've never really been completely satisfied that their conclusion it *was* a mistake would also be my conclusion.

If you get me.Stephanie, you protest too much.

And I don't "get" you. You remind me a little of a young woman I dated who decided to take up photography.

This person acquired a Nikon F with a plain (no meter) prism and a normal lens, went out and took pictures. When I asked her how she set exposure without a meter (yes, I was thinking sunny 16) she told me that she set aperture and shutter speed creatively. She was shooting b/w negative film, which has broad latitude and allows large exposure errors. Even so most of her shots were unprintable.

Eventually she got over her fixation with creative exposure, got a book and learned technique. These days she's a very capable photographer. Takes technically good pictures and has a very good eye.

Aleatory photography, like aleatory music, has always struck me as a bad idea. There's no way to avoid learning the craft.

That said, this discussion has been more about choice of equipment and very little about craft. As far as I know you're on top of the craft. What you're not on top of is reading. I am well aware that every individual has its own way of learning and I said so. And I told you that if you're happy, I'm happy for you. What more can you want? An explicit blessing for what I see as, um, misguided behavior?

Now go and be happy.

[vonstauren]

snip
And I have criticism of this as well, while we're on the subject of learning.

People learn in different ways. This would apply if there was one true way to learn, but history and my experience working with kids has taught me otherwise. I learn plenty efficiently for me. I tend to learn fast from mistakes, but sometimes my "mistakes" lead me to other interesting experiments and my learning starts all over again.

.

Just don't take this forum too seriously. It's a mixed society here, and yes, plenty of BS to find too.
Personally, if someone were talking down to me, because I'm "like a young woman he was dating" and giving me advice about how she was and how it ended I would just laugh at the old F... speaking to me. For me it is the BS I mentioned above.
You have your style, your joy, your happiness - come with it to share it, if you like and if somebody else doesn't like it, it's his problem.
I experiment in a way far beyond the usual ways in photography and in camera making and I learned, among other things, this one - the more original you're, the more you will be attacked by those lacking your originality. If you have more important things to do than speaking to them, then do them and enjoy yourself. :)

[Jim Galli]

I wondered who got that crapastigmat! :D:D Well at least you didn't find the crapetzval. What worries me slightly after 10+ years of experimenting and having fun is that there are lenses in the cupboard that made excellent images when I played with them, never to be picked up again. I'm going to venture that perhaps 95% of the images posted at my web pages were made because I bought some old clunker, cobbled it to the front of a camera, and found subject matter so I could see what it would produce. I think you're spot on the right track. You may as well not fight the urge to get a big old Century Studio camera. Best test platform ever devised.

[Stephanie Brim]

Well, the crapastigmat is going to barely cover the head of a pin...so I should try it with 6x6, eh Jim? :D

Oh, and I did see a Kodak 2D that someone wanted a pittance for, but it didn't have a 4x5 back and I have no 8x10 holders. ;)

[Jim Galli]

....but it didn't have a 4x5 back and I have no 8x10 holders. ;)

Both remedial.

[Benno Jones]

Stephanie I think you have a great attitude and (while it's obvious you don't need the advice) don't let anyone tell you you're doing things "wrong". I too learn by doing and making mistakes and figuring out how to either "fix" the mistakes to get what I want or finding how to make the "mistake" work for me to get something else.

Film photography is an art based in two sciences - optics and chemistry. Therefore you will find many photographers drawn to it from the scientific side. Many other of us are drawn from the artistic side. Neither is wrong, and both find their own way to the results they want.

I may have 11 years to go before I'm ripe, but I do know that there is no one true path to anything.

[domenico Foschi]

Well, the crapastigmat is going to barely cover the head of a pin...so I should try it with 6x6, eh Jim? :D

Oh, and I did see a Kodak 2D that someone wanted a pittance for, but it didn't have a 4x5 back and I have no 8x10 holders. ;)

Stephanie, if the camera is till available, get it, I have a 4x5 reducing back for you.
Also for a pittance.
DOmenico

[domenico Foschi]

Oohps, my mistake!
It is a 5x7 back.
Still for a pittance if you need it.

[Stephanie Brim]

I'm sticking with my Graphic View for now, but keep that back. I may need it sooner than you think. ;)

[steve simmons]

At this point in your career I might encourage you to leave this forum, get a Polaroid back and some film and just play, experiment, and try things. You be the only judge. It seems that you may be beginning to get caught in defending yourself and, if so, this won't help your learning curve and creativity.

Leave the Polaroids out to look at and live with for days or weeks and see what resonates with you. I am not sure you should even look at the work of others for a few weeks. Just play.

steve simmons

[domenico Foschi]

At this point in your career I might encourage you to leave this forum, get a Polaroid back and some film and just play, experiment, and try things. You be the only judge. It seems that you may be beginning to get caught in defending yourself and, if so, this won't help your learning curve and creativity.

Leave the Polaroids out to look at and live with for days or weeks and see what resonates with you. I am not sure you should even look at the work of others for a few weeks. Just play.

steve simmons

correct

[BarryS]

Polaroids? Type 55 is selling for over $5/sheet. I bought some Type 55, but I'm saving it for when I master the art. :) Maybe Arista EDU Ultra at less than 50 cents/sheet is a better choice.

[steve simmons]

You don't have to use Type 55. There is the 100 ASA black and white and there is the Type 52 - both of which are less expensive. The advantage to using Poloroid is the instant feedback.

just my 2 cents.

steve simmons

[Stephanie Brim]

Eh. Never been much of an instant feedback person. Polaroids are great, but when you can get a package of 50 sheets of Arista EDU Ultra for $20 it kinda makes the price of Polaroids look way, way too high. Developing right after shooting is instant enough for me.

This coming weekend and the next one I will be working on getting everything set to do some printing and 'studio' work. My studio will be located upstairs in an unused room and will probably double as my photo equipment storage room as well. The room is larger with a very good natural light source (double window) and said window won't be too hard to block off completely when I want to use only artificial lighting. My darkroom is my crowning achievement for this year. It'll be about 12x12' in a basement that stays a constant 68 degrees during summer. I'll want a small heater during winter, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. By this time next year, if all goes well, I'll have plumbing in addition to a large space to work. The finished products (work prints, final prints, and negatives) will be properly stored upstairs in the studio due to the fact that the basement can get a little damp. The studio will also have a desk at which I can work.

A lot of what I'm using for the studio and the darkroom is either being made by us or thrifted, which is making everything rather cheap. I never knew that the Salvation Army or Goodwill was a good place to go until I started looking for props for the studio. I now see used furniture stores in a whole new light.

It's a lot of fun so far. May go down to the used furniture store today. Haven't been in a few weeks. Maybe they got some new stuff.

[vonstauren]

At this point in your career I might encourage you to leave this forum, get a Polaroid back and some film and just play, experiment, and try things. You be the only judge. It seems that you may be beginning to get caught in defending yourself and, if so, this won't help your learning curve and creativity.

snip
steve simmons

Defending yourself? Laugh it off! You've received more friendly posts here than old F...'s advice - no reason to leave, to defend what so ever. Learn what you want where you want as you want. That's not advice - that's your freedom from it.

[steve simmons]

I made my statement because she indicated she felt a need to defend herself. I did not question her feelings, just made a suggestion.

Relax.

steve simmons

[Nick_3536]

said window won't be too hard to block off completely when I want to use only artificial lighting.

With flash/strobe and enough power you won't need to. At least with LF you'll find between the shutter speed and the aperture that daylight won't be a big issue.

[Kuzano]

See, that's what I'm talking about.

The most haunting images I've ever see, those that stay with me, are not technically perfect. They're compositionally interesting, but there's a lot that can be found "wrong" with them.

OK, now there you go... something to learn. The appropriate phrase should be "technically correct". Technically correct is not, and may never be, perfect. I have, even as a young child, always experimented. However my greatest respect for experimentation was when I started dating in 1957. I found it both fun and memory making. Have been doing it ever since. NO, not dating, ... experimenting.

Some of the experimentation in photography has been intentional, and much has clearly been learning something interesting by making both small and huge mistakes.

Keep on Keeping on!

[butterflydream]

I like experimentation.
Be a rebel to yourself!

http://silvergrain.kr/depression/images/image114.jpg

C-41, 30sec development, 10min bleach.