Narrative: Theory Notes (My Story)

Narrative (storyboard) photography is a series of photos that tells a story. Here is my story. Sally leaned over to Lisa. She had found her newest victim. "Oh, my God! WHAT is she wearing? A belt on top of a shirt? What a weirdo! She thinks she's like some fashionable diva or whatever? Uhmm, no. Sorry honey." Lisa looked where she had Sally pointed. Frida was walking by. Of everyone Lisa hated, she talked about Frida the most. "Ugh!! Look at her! Looking at us like she's all that? Really? Whatever. Keep walking honey. Just keep walking." Sally was taking careful note of the art of bullying. And Lisa was the master.

But Frida had had enough. She was tired of being bullied every day of every month just because Lisa was bored. And today was the day it was going to end. She was scared, and she knew it showed. But she had to be strong or this would never end. So she said it. Lisa was just jealous. But that was when Sally piped up. "Jealous?!" she said. "Jealous of what, toothpick?" She had been learning, and had finally mastered the art of the unnecessary diss. Unfortunately, this was the wrong day to have surpassed the master.

Frida lunged at Sally with fury. She just couldn't take it anymore. And she wouldn't. She pulled Sally out of the chair and attacked her like an animal, pulling her hair, scratching her face, and screaming at the top of her lungs. Lisa found the whole thing entertaining, because there was 1 thing Sally didn't know yet: always have someone by you to take the blame for what you've done.

Narrative: Printing Composition: 3 + 4

For the next print, I tried the same setting I had used for the last print.

Aperture: 2.8

Time: 40

Filter: 4This looked good, so I tried a full print at these settings. Aperture: 2.8 Time: 40 Filter: 4

I then tried the last print's test strips at the same settings, since they looked about the same on the contact sheet. Aperture: 2.8 Time: 40 Filter: 4

This also looked fine, so I did a full print straight away, making this my fastest photography project ever!

Aperture: 2.8 Time: 40 Filter: 4

Narrative: Printing Composition: 1 + 2

This is my contact sheet. The negatives turned out fairly well, excpet for the black bars on the sides of a lot of the images and amoebas on some of them. Aperture: 4 Time: 42 Filter: 0 Then I tried my first print at the same settings as the contact sheet but doubled the time, since it was a full print. Aperture: 4 Time: 84 Filter: 0 That was too dark and gray, so I tried a test strip at aperture 8 and several times. Aperture: 8 Time: 84+10... Filter: 0 This looked good, so I did a full print at 94 seconds. Aperture: 8 Time: 94 Filter: 0

For the next print, I tried the first test strip using the previous print's settings: Aperture: 8 Time: 94 Filter: 0

This was too dark, so I tried a test strip at a lower time. Aperture: 8 Time: 80 + 2... Filter: 0 This was too gray, so I opened my aperture and added a high filter, since the story "happens" in the background, which is darker. Aperture: 2.8 Time: 40 Filter: 4 This looked better, so I tried a full print at those settings. Aperture: 2.8 Time: 40 Filter: 4

Narrative: Diary Entry

This project was a lot of fun. It felt really good to be done before the deadline, because that has never happened to me before. I enjoyed working with the smaller sizes, because it was cuter and I like hoe the smaller sizes look. It was really frustrating that my negatives were developed badly, however, because there was a big black line on the side of almost all of my prints. Also, Becca's forehead in the first print and the ceiling in the last print had weird amoebas on them. I really liked using the flash, though, because my negatives turned out better and I felt powerful walking around with sucha huge flash on my camera. Although it did take a couple tries to get the flash working- I had to re-shoot and still ended up with a bit of problems on my negatives.

Claustrophobia: Image Bank

Joshua Hoffine

A horror photographer, Hoffine creates scary photos. All of his images are staged, like a movie, and he only uses photoshop for small details. His full method can be found here. He grew up in Kansas fearing tornadoes and the monster under his bed.

I chose this image because he has juxtaposed something so widely feared with something so commonly protected, increasing the fear factor of the image since the child is seemingly defenseless. Yet interestingly enough the infant doesn't seem perturbed at all by the spider. The sepia tones also make the picture scarier.

Alexis Hunter

Alexis Hunter has been working as an artist through various mediums since the 1970s. Her artwork wrestles with her ideas about society and the role of women. She has been invited to do countless solo shows, as well as being displayed in various other places. Full biography here.

I chose this image because the woman seems constricted in her clothing, claustrophobic in her role. I like the composition, it's very eye-catching, and the fact that it's black and white can be interpreted to say a lot about the culture, most especially concerning Hunter's feminist ideals.

Yousuf Karsh Karsh was a photographer from Ontario famous for his portraits of famous people. He prided himself on getting the oul of a person in the image, which he said came from a split second where they briefly lift "the mask" that all humans conceal their true selves with. I chose this picture, a portrait of Georgia O'Keefe, because she seemed trapped in her environment, yet somehow free from it, as if she was transcending reality. For some reason the picture was calming. Picture Source

Claustrophobia: Theory Notes

Dictionary.com defines claustrophobia as "an abnormal fear of being in enclosed or narrow places." I tried to convey this with my photographs.

Since claustophobia is a fear of small spaces, I wanted to have intimate yet intimidating close-ups of a seemingly scared model, as if through the eyes of a perpetrator of some sort. I wanted to try and violate a visual comfort zone. I did so by taking picture of different, rather disjointed areas of her body in the same position, as if the viewer is looking her up and down, examining her fear.

For the final print, in which she is in a different pose, I wanted an attempted escape, breaking the pattern created by the intimidated look in the previous images.

Claustrophobia: Printing Compositions

This is the contact sheet I made for this project. I used the 4 circled images. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 seconds For my 1st print, I tried a test strip to make sure the contact sheet settings were the best. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50-70 seconds (10 second intervals)

But after I did the contact sheet I realized there was a lot of contrast so I needed to do an A4 print to make sure everything was ok. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 seconds

Then I decided the contrast was good, so I did a full print. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 seconds

Then I decided the settings were good for the rest of the prints, so I did another one at the same settings. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 seconds I then did another print at the same settings. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 secondsFor the 4th print I figured it was best to do a test strip first just to make sure the same settings were still good for this print. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 secondsThen I did a full print at that time. Aperture: 4 Filter: 0 Time: 50 seconds