Conclusion

Time flies. It’s so fast that I’ve finished nine posts and are typing the last one now! So unbelievable. I’d like to show gratitude to those who visit my blog and make comments on the articles. Though it may be complicated or boring sometimes, I hope you can enjoy them and appreciate the photos.

The reason choosing this topic is mainly due to my interest. I took my first film this June, and I was impressed by the results. Therefore, I decided this topic to get know more about film photography and share with you. It was quite hard for me to write articles at first because I wasn’t familiar with these information. However, I’ve gone through it.

The contents are mainly divided into three parts, which are introduction of films, film developing, and an example of a photographic style-street photography. On the first topic, I introduced the history of films, different categories of films and their structures. Then I mentioned the steps of developing. On the last topic, I introduced a style, street photography, which I am interested in, and a great photographer, Henri Cartier Bresson.

I hope you can find film photography interesting and like the photos I shared with you! And as usual, I have to post my last picture to you. It’s rice in the Shirakawa Gō (白川鄉合掌村). It reminded me of Cloudgate’s dance work, Rice(稻禾), and I highly recommend this beautiful great work after I’ve watched it twice!

Street Photography(III):Henri Cartier-Bresson

       Hi guys! Today I will follow the last article, continuing introducing Henri Cartier Bresson about his photographic styles after WWII.

       Bresson started traveling the whole Europe and taking pictures after deciding to learn photography. However, during WWII, he had been priosined in Germany for three years when he was doing mandatory military service. It was the turning point that he changed his photographic styles.

    

       He tried to emphasize humanistic care in the photos and the independence of photographers. Thus, in 1947, he founded Magnum Photo Agency with some other photographers for these purposes, trying to seize the trend of the world and focus on humanity. After that, Bresson traveled around the globe and recorded many historic events, such as the time before Mahatma Gandhi’s (聖雄甘地) assassinate and his funeral in India, and the period that the government was changed to Communist Party of China from KMT. He recorded poor conditions and burdens on the people under the changeable situations by camera.

                                           

    

       Next week I will introduce his late years and conclude Henri Cartier Bresson’s achievements. It’s a bit long in three articles, but I hope you can enjoy it and know more about this great photographer.

      And if you are interested in Henri Cartier Bresson’s photos and Magnum Photo Agency, you can read this website:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZMYN

Street Photography(II):Henri Cartier-Bresson

Hello guys! Today I’m going to introduce Henri Cartier-Bresson(1908-2004), a very important French photographer in 20th century. He not only left many masterpieces and concepts for taking pictures, but also created photo documentary, a precursor for photojournalism, and the world-famous Magnum Photos(瑪格蘭通訊社). His styles can be divided into three phases, and this week I’d like to share the first phase and his background.

Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika

He was born in a wealthy family near Paris. Learning painting at a young age, Bresson was good at composing and was sensitive to the surroundings when he turned to photography later. Inspired by a photo “Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika”, taken by Hungary photographer martin Munkácsi, he developed a style of “Decisive Moment”, for capturing the most moving scene. As a result, his pictures tell vivid stories and his “Decisive Moment” has an eternal effect on many photographers.

European Square,Paris,1932

Take the photo “Hyères, Paris’’ for example. A person rode a bike passing before the stairs, and Bresson took the shot above. The person’s body blurred due to the speed, and his position on the top left side can be seen as an elongation of the stairs. These factors make the picture a perfection. You may think he was fortunate, however, it was his hardworking and skills that he could catch this moment besides luck!      

Hyères, Paris,1932

Street Photography(I):What's street photography?

Hi guys! For the next few weeks, I will introduce street photography, a type of photography that I’m interested in, and several famous street photographers who use films.

 (a piece of classic photo taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, a master in street photography) 

  

     It’s hard to define “street photography” precisely, for everybody thinks differently about it and there are too many categories and styles. Some may think it’s just taking photos on the streets, but taking for what? Recording unique events happened on the streets? Passengers’ movements and the emotions through them? Or some objects forms an interesting picture after composing them?

(the shape of air hatch is similar to the internet word "= =", expressing the feelings)

 As for me, they are all parts of street photography, so it’s easier to talk about some of my thoughts about street photography rather than making a definition of it.

 I think street photography gives me a different way to observe the world, such as the interactions between people or humans and the environment. It’s pleasant to find the unusual moments in daily lives and record them!

(the way the lady using the laptop is interesting!)

      (These photos were taken in the U.K.)

About films(lll):Positive Films

Today I’m going to introduce another kind of photographic film, positive films(正片). They are less common than negative films nowadays, however, it was more popular before! Let’s see why it was prevalent but replaced with negative films today.

      Positive films, also called “reversal,” “slide,” or “transparency” film, represents the same color and luminance as the original object and scenery. It can be viewed as a slide by using lightbox and amplifier, and the its beautiful color is far different from the photos taken by negative films or just seeing on the computer screens. Therefore, many professional photographers loved to take pictures by positive films.

      Nevertheless, it needs more accurate exposure than negative films do owing to its less exposure tolerance, it needs higher skills. In addition, it has to be processed for two steps, X-processed (正片負沖) and transparency(反轉),to represent the real color and luminance. It’s more expensive and takes longer time, so as the film photography became more popular, novitiates turned to use negative films, for it’s cheaper and more convenient. Yet there are still many people use positive films for the breathtaking pictures taken by them.

        This week’s photo was still taken in japan, at Kanazawa castle (金澤城). There’s no need to explain for the meaning of it, so just enjoy the scenery! If I really have to say something, I’ll say Kanazawa is a lovely place worth going!       

-If you are interested in processing positive films, please watch this video:

(The first to third photo is pasted from:http://photoblog.hk/wordpress/13052/analogism-%EF%BC%88%E4%B9%9D%EF%BC%89%EF%BC%88%E8%8F%B2%E6%9E%97%E5%85%A5%E9%96%80-%EF%B9%A3%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E6%98%AF%E6%AD%A3%E7%89%87%EF%BC%9F%EF%BC%89)

About Films(II):The Structure of Films

Hi guys! It’s scheduled to introduce positive films this week, but before that I would like to replenish some information about the structure of photographic films, and the main difference between negative films and positive films, to make you know better about them.

         Both positive and negative films are composed of three layers of light sensing gelatin (乳膠), which sense the color blue, green, red respectively. Between first and second sensitive layer of is yellow color filter layer, which absorbs all the blue light after getting through the sensitive layer. Thus, there were only green light and red light passing the filter layer. With the same principle, the other two sensitive layers absorb different lights and then the light are absorbed by the filter layer.

     

      There are also developer in light sensing latex, which will be the complementary color when the film is processed. This kind of film is called “negative film”. As for positive film, it needs reversal development (反轉顯影) to become the same color of the scenery.

    

       Hope you can have a better understanding of photographic film’s structure. The picture I’d like to share with you today is a Japanese man and a shrine. This was also taken in Japan, after the man had worship a deity. The man’s back gave tranquil atmosphere to the photo, and I couldn’t help thinking he must be a good-looking gentleman!

About Films (I): Negative Films

       Today I’m going to introduce an important part of film photography, films. Without films, there will be no pictures. (Well…it’s not informational at all.) There are many kinds of films, and in this and next post I will tell you the two main categories, negative films and positive films respectively. And in next post I will tell the difference between the two.

   

Negative Films

Negative films is the most commonly used kind of film, as we’ve seen in daily lives. Not only it is cheaper than others but many other reasons make it so widespread. First of all, its tolerance is higher than other kinds of films ( e.g. positive films), so it could be post-producted (後製) in the darkroom if you didn’t let the right amount of light onto the film. Secondly, it’s easy to process and the cost of the processing is inexpensive. Thirdly, it can be converted onto the graph at a lower price, makes it more easily for spreading. As a result, negative films are widely used due to its convenience and price.

At the end of the post, I want to show you a picture taken in 21^st Kanazawa Art Museum, Japan. It was a girl by the famous work, the swimming pool, and she was pulled by her parent while she was about to get into the pool. It was an amazing contrast!

Photographic processing

As a film photography lover, learning how to process films is one of my goals. So I’d like to share some related information to you.

The picture below is the steps of film processing. The process can be divided to three parts, which are exposure process, chemical process and refinement process. There are several steps in each of them. During the first and second process, the film must be prevented from being exposed to the light.

(Ref: wiki)

1.      Exposure

When we are taking a shot, the film in the camera will be exposed to light. It’s important to control the right amount of light, or the pictures may be too bright or too dark.

2.      Developer bath

Photographic developer, a mixture of chemical compounds, transforms the latent image to the visible image. When photographic films are soaked in the developer, the silver ions exposed to light before will be turned into silver. If the bathing time is longer, the image will be darker. Therefore, time needs to be controlled in this step.

        Ag⁺   (light) → Ag

3.      Stop bath

The usage of this step is to stop the developer from working. Instead of using acid in the step, water-washing is allowed.

4.      Fixer bath

Fixer bath is to dissolve the rest of the silver halide on the film. With this step, the image will be stable and won’t be affected by light anymore. We usually use Sodium thiosulfate (硫代硫酸鈉，俗稱海波) for fixer bath.  

5.      Washing

To remove the rest of fixer on the film, the film has to be washed by a large amount of water, usually taking more than five minutes.

6.      Drying

After all the steps above, the film must be dried in dust-free environment. Then you will see the photos taking by yourself!

As always, I will put my picture to this blog every week. The photo was taken at Tamsui MRT station, and the woman in the black cloth was an unexpected character. What was she looking at, and what was she thinking about? With the appearance and the following questions about this woman, the photo gets more interesting!

Here is a video about film processing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu0Ul_wsYO8

Brief history of photographic film

       Hello guys! Let’s talk about a brief history of photographic film today. It originated in England in the early 18th century, and has been through several huge changes.  

1. Calotype (卡羅法):Invented by William Henry Fox Tablet in 1835, the  Calotype process is paper negatives with 
        Silver(I) chloride (AgCl,氯化銀).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

2. Wet Plate Processing (濕版火綿膠攝影法): It’s a less expensive film and its light sensitivity was a lot better.    

                                                                                                (Calotype[1]) 

                                                                                      (Wet Plate Processing[2])

3. Color photographic film: The first color photographic film was invented by German physicist Maxwell in 1861.

4. Flexible photographic roll film: The Kodak company produced a new type of light-sensitive material in 1888. Different from the original film which was a coating on a paper base, the new image-bearing layer was transferred to a hargelatin support. Then the first transparent plastic roll film was devised the next year. From then on, the type of photographic film was confirmed.

    Hope this information will let you guys know more about photographic films. In the end, I would like to post a picture taken in my hometown, Hsinchu, It's the intersection I will pass through everyday. Although it was taken by cellphone, it's still a nice photo:)

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[1]http://www.upagallery.com/blog/2014/7/24/photographys-parallel-histories

[2]http://zhejiang.kaiwind.com/jctp/201407/09/t20140709_1753648.shtml

    photo by Alex Timmermans

Film Photography(1) : Why Films?

     Hello everyone! It’s my pleasure to introduce my new interest, film photography, to all of you .Before we start some boring history and knowledge of it, let us go back to the basic: why I choose film cameras instead of digital cameras?

                                                                (From my first film.)

     There are three main reasons .First of all, when many people say it’s a nuisance not to check how photos look after taking them, I see it as a great advantage. Because you have only one chance to take the photo (It’s okay to have more photos though it costs LOTS of money lol), you will take it more seriously. Thus, you will learn more and be more impressed from it. 

     Secondly, there’s a special texture in film photos, different from photos taken by digital cameras. 

     Last but not the least, film photos always give me surprises. Sometimes there are some effects out of expectations. Take the graph below for example, there is reflect light from the field behind the railing, making a delight atmosphere to the photo. What a surprise!

(From my first film.)

     I like things that are antique, and film photography is one of them. Hope you’ll enjoy my photos and love films from now on J         

(Also from my first film!)