User:THY/ Focal camera

10.10.2019

Before coming to this class, I always shoot images with the available functions of the digital camera without fully understand how it works. With this workshop, I become conscious of every choice I made to build my camera. I built a slit-scan camera without a shutter speed and I count the exposure time manually.

One thing I like about analogue photography is: the photos don’t always come out exactly how I want it. There are many manual things to control and the photos don’t always turn out how I think they will. When I get the negatives back, it could be completely different from what I saw. There is always three distinct thought process when I work with analogue photography:

Before the shoot: Think of what effects I want with my picture and how to shoot it

After the shoot: Take note about my settings when I was shooting and my expectations

Scan film into digital: Evaluate result, compare to my expectations and think about what could be changed to get better results.

Analogue photography makes me work with what I've got and it has the time-delayed effects to make me think throughout about my photos.

First tryout

Location: Rotterdam central station

Why: The Metro always go through a black tunnel to get to the next station and it gives me the feeling of time and space displacement. Therefore, I want to try achieving that visual effect through my slit-scan camera.

-Shutter speed time for each photo: 15s - 30s

-Distance between camera and subject: 2 meters minimum

What did I experience?

-Because I have to roll the film strip constantly, it got stuck halfway and I had to come to a dark place, open the back and fix it.

-My slit slide was wobbly made out of cardboard, which was thick and did not has a straight slit line

-Out of focus

-I didn't have a tripod, my camera was shaking when I rolled the film

What do I do next?

-Replace camera slit slide (thinner than the previous one)

-Find a box or something to keep the camera stable

-Reduce the shooting distance to 1 meter

First shoot