Panorama

Panorama is a series of shots that is taken to make a scenery when the photo merges together. The photo merging process is done in the Photoshop software. This is the software that allows the user to customize the photo in anyway and size to fit the needs of the user. To create a panorama, the photographer have to take at least 5 photos in a line. This would help to merge the photo smoothly because the picture are overlapping each other.

Taking panorama is one of my favorite style of photography. To take a panorama in dark places was a great experience for me because I usually take light scenery of landscapes. It's a nice change to see that dark panorama are as fascinating as the bright panorama. The IOS has to be very high like 650 to be able to shot in dark place like the theater.

Picture Story

A picture story is a series of pictures taken in the sequence or same style about an event or activity. This series is to show my school. The different views that can be seen for the around the school. To show the scenery of various angles that the school provides in the structure. Different aspect of the school where the architecture is complex that it produce unique contrast between the light and dark shadows.

       

My experience with taking picture story was contradicting due to how I didn't have a solid story line to take the pictures. I took pictures that have scenery where students walk past these areas but have not taken the time to appreciate the building that supported the education system in Malaysia and to see how the past intercept with the future.

Pinhole

The pinhole camera is a camera made by a tin can. The can is being drilled a hole with a driller. Then take a smaller can like an aluminium can and cut a small square and poke a small hole in the middle with a pin. Then place the small square of the aluminium piece over the drilled hole and tape the edges with a black tape to secure it and prevent light from seeping through. This is to prevent the printing sheet being exposed to light due to the sheet being light sensitive.

This is the negative print of the pin hole photo.

  This is the positive print of the pin hole photo.







Before setting up the camera, the process of putting in a printing sheet the environment of the work place needs to be in a dark environment like the dark room to prevent light exposure. To set up the pin hole camera, put a printing sheet in the tin can with the smooth side facing the hole. Trim the access paper until the lid is able to be sealed. Once the tin can is completely sealed with no possibility for the light to seep through, cover the tiny hole of the aluminium can with your hands and exit the dark room or the dark environment.

To take a negative with the pin hole is to remove the hand that was covering the photo and align the hole towards the subject. Do not face the hole towards any direct light source including the sun as this will only turn the negative pitch black. The time of exposure vary that it depends on the lighting and the minutes it takes to expose the negative. Ideal time would be 10 to 15 minutes.

Taking pin hole photo was changing at first due to fact that the light sensitive paper and that I need to think where the brightest light is in order to avoid the pitch black negative. It was difficult but the experience of take the negative is different that not knowing the print is nerve racking. At the same time impressed that the positive print turn out pretty good with the perspective.

Film Processing

Film processing is the process of developing a film from a camera that uses film rolls like the Nikon F100. The film being used is the 400 black and white film roll. The process of rolling a film rolls have to be done in a dark environment like the dark room with zero source of light. This process of rolling films can be done with a group of people due to the efficiency of getting all the film processed at a short amount of time.

The first step is to unroll the film to put in a roller. To unroll, break the casing that holds the films and unroll the films out of the casing. Once the film is out use the roller to roll the film and later drop it in the tank depending on the amount of rollers there is. The tanks vary from 3 roll tank, 5 roll tank and 10 roll tank.

After transferring the films, pre-soak the tank with room temperature and agitate the tank for one minute. Later drain the tank and measure out 1:2 ratio of developer and water. An example would be, 350mL of developer and 650mL of water mixed into a 2L measuring cylinder. Pour the developer mixture into the tank and agitate. Let the films soak for 20 ~ 35 minutes while agitating every 5 minutes.

Drain the developer solution and pour in the stop bath solution until it covers the films and agitate for one minutes. Clean the funnel and put it in the stop bath tank to save the used solution. Fill the tank with the fixer solution and agitate. Leave the fixer for 5 minutes and clean the funnel that will be used to strain the fixer into the fixer tank. Open the lid of the tank, since the films are now light save and rinse it under the running room temperature water to get rid of the excesses.

Pour in the Hypo Clear #1 into the tank until it covers the films and leave it for 2 minutes. Take a clean funnel and pour the solution into a tank called Hypo Clear #2. Hypo Clear #2 is just a re-usable hypo clear solution. Do not save the hypo clear #2 if it is used.

Rinse the tank with running water for about 3 ~ 4 minutes. Take ¼ cap of a photo flo and mix it with running water in a 2L bucket. Take out the film roles and dip them in the photo flo mixture for 2 ~ 3 minutes. Take a roller and drain the excess photo flo solution and unroll the film to hang for the drying process. Leave the film to dry for a day as the dry film makes it easily to store in the film sleeves.  

Dark Room

The Dark Room is a room that is dark and where the films are being developed. This is where the printing is done. The room is needed to be dark due to the fact that the printing paper can be easily expose to any bright source of light. The result would be a black print when it is soaked in the developer solution.


This is the layout of the dark room. The sink in the middle of the room is where the developer solution, the stop bath solution, the fixer solution, the lower rinse, and the upper rinse is located. It is not advisable to go in this room with any source of bright light, such as bright phone screen or the normally used lights in the classrooms or office areas.

This is a machine used to expose the film stripes onto the paper and created a contact print. The contact print is use for looking at each individual frame on one sheet so later it can be printed onto a bigger scale. The machine uses a timer to expose the film with high density light. The timer has a pointer where the time is set in seconds and the longer the time it takes the film to expose to a printing sheet, the darker the film exposure will come out.

Once the contact print is looked over, this machine that has the similar functions to the previous machine used to make a contact sheet is used to make a single frame expose onto a printing sheet in a bigger scale. When the decision of deciding which frame to enlarge, remove the strip for the slip and place the strip in the negative tray facing up-side down. Place a tape on the negative to stop the strip from moving around.

Overall the Dark Room is an interesting place to work in. The different environment of the room and the classroom did take time to get use to but in the end, the extreme change in the light source doesn't bother me much more. Work in the Dark Room is exciting because I barely like to work in a bright environment which is a nice change from the bright classrooms environment.