I have a couple other blog posts in the works that certainly should have come before this one, and the only reasons they haven't is because one of them is a potentially on-going problem, and the other is incredibly long winded compared to what I'm used to and I would rather take my time with it than publish something I'm not happy is complete. With that being said let me start with this issue at hand.
With the University shutting it's doors due to a global pandemic, I have found myself without the darkroom space I so love, the place that sparked my passion for photography which I have spoken at length about in the past on my Instagram account (@cr.ckrt). This has meant I have has to make the switch to digital editing, which has caused many hurdles and problems for my project; One of the posts in the works I mentioned at the start delves deep into many of these hurdles, so I will try to only talk about differences between digital and analogue editing and a specific problem here - the problem of predictability.
Now, being able to produce predictable results sounds like a good thing right? In many ways it is, to be able to produce predictable results in a darkroom is a desirable skill (however I've found digitally this is a given), but this predictability isn't always what you want. In fact, the unpredictability is what I crave and where most of my inspiration for processes and techniques comes from for not only this project, but most projects I have attempted as of yet. I have found working digitally does not afford me this random experimentation as easily as working in the darkroom does, perhaps a part of that is I'm not as familiar with the tools at my disposal in Photoshop, they're all just cryptic symbols and numbers to me (what even IS a curve?). In the darkroom I would come across a 'mistake', a random act of chemistry and a light bulb (a red 1A safelight one of course) would go off. I'd be asking myself "How did this happen?" or "How can I recreate/stop this?" which would all eventually lead to "What if I took this further?" and that furthering of these initially unexpected occurrences is how I reached most of the processes I had used last term and this. To quote someone I'm sure you've all heard of, and many people love, "We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents." - Bob Ross, The Joy of Painting. All of my photographic career thus far has been a series of happy accident after happy accident, and I'm feeling quite lost without that opportunity, and disheartened at the happy accidents that were in store for me that I will now not be able to nurture and develop within this project.
I'm used to being quite animated when working, moving from enlarger to chemicals to sink etc. all whilst bopping along to music I was brought up on by my dad (often something from his expansive record collection which I now call my own). So being restricted to a small area in front of a computer screen has been especially jarring for me. I find it difficult to listen to music when working on my computer because I want to be able to move about but when I do so it stops me from working. I know this may be just a minor drop in the bucket of difficulties I am having right now, but it's something that has impacted my work ethic more than I thought it would. I know for a lot of people music helps them work and spurs them on, but in the dark room I had been making a concerted effort to listen to music that made me think of my dad as another way of really feeling this project deep within my soul, as silly as that sounds. This lack of beat-based backing I think will effect the final outcome of my work. whether that be in a positive way or not is not for me to know, and it feels 'iffy' to even mention the word positive there because every aspect of this project will be done for a reason and it will end up how it ends up. Like I have said a lot in the past, I like my projects to guide me as much as I guide them, and the surroundings and resources available at hand play a large part in that evolution of a concept and visual presentation.
One would expect digital work to be faster than its analogue counterpart, and maybe it is for those who started digitally or use it primarily, but I am finding that things that took me 5-10 minutes at most by hand are taking 1-2 hours or even longer digitally. I am certain a lot of this is down to my inexperience in the digital world, but for there to be that much disparity between timings makes me sure it's not all my ineptitude and lack of skill. This has only added to the stress of having to adjust to doing my project differently to how originally planned, especially when it being a darkroom process was so entangled in my concept due to the reasons discussed in this post.
It's not all doom and gloom however, even though I am finding this whole experience very difficult and mentally taxing (as well as a strain on my eyes thanks to the constant computer screen in front of me), it will hopefully afford me more skills to have in my arsenal of artistic weapons for the future! As much as I haven't wanted to admit it in the past, there is a much larger market for digital work than there is darkroom work. I don't need a whole room in my house dedicated to a Photoshop station like I would a darkroom and whilst I am finding this uncharted territory difficult to navigate at the moment, each day I am learning more and more about it. I'm sure much like in the past my resources have informed my projects presentation, that will be the case for this; I just hope there is enough time for me to not only learn everything I need to, but to adapt to letting the digital evolve my film stills and manage to bring the two worlds together over a concept that means an awful lot to me. A concept that is even more poignant considering my father's health status during this pandemic.
Something else positive that has come out of this is my ability to involve my father in the process rather than just the final pieces. Last term I managed to get his input on which prints to present as finals and which ones to leave out, but as I am now home during 'term time' I have the opportunity to ask for his input at each moment and instance of this project, putting my dad not only back into the landscape as intended, but into this project even further. I am obviously disappointed in the way my final year project is turning out, but I have not lost all hope and will continue to fight for a quality outcome I am proud of!
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