Novel – new

Novel definition: A novel is a fictional narrative written in prose that focuses on character development, on engaging plot, and a coherent theme.

My idea: My idea is to do this project on A Christmas Carol because it’s got good meanings and this novel is symbolic, it shows that humanity still exists and people can change. The ghosts in the novel are goof at shoeing that you can change the future by focusing on the present and the past can’t be changed by the future can be.

Main Messages:

Redemption and personal transformation
Social responsibility and human connection
The impact of past choices on our present/future
Wealth’s true value lies in how it’s used to help others
Time is precious and finite

The Ghosts and Their Symbolism:

Ghost of Christmas Past: Memory, nostalgia, childhood innocence Represents how our past shapes us and the importance of remembering who we once were
Ghost of Christmas Present: Joy, generosity, abundance Shows the warmth of human connection and the widespread poverty Scrooge ignores
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Consequence, mortality, fear Represents the power of choice and the urgency of changing before it’s too late

I took this information from ai, it helped me see what I can do to link the novel with photography. The ai made me see that there’s a lot that my work could focus on. I think my main focus is going to be the ghosts because it shows the transformation between the person, shows them in the past, present and future.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol to show the social commentary and his family experiences. Charles Dickens was forced to drop out of school as a boy to work at a factory, this happened to lot’s of children in the Victorian times they would usually clean the chimneys because they were small enough but that was very dangerous for them. This book shows how different people struggled and some had a better life just because they were rich, rich people were self centred and scrooge was the same, he changed in the end and helped out.

Photographers:

Steve McCurry:

Steve McCurry is an American photographer who is famous from taking a portrait of a woman. He uses lots of emotion in portraits and vibrant colours, the photo stands out more because of it. I want to do something similar with bright clothes because it will stand out a lot.

Thomas Annan:

He was a photographer in the 19th century in Glasgow, Scotland. He took photos of streets in Scotland, they look sketchy which fits in well with A Christmas Carol because these streets. I can recreate this by going around Bradford and going into sketchy places to take photos and then turn them white and black to give it that old, spooky, sketchy vibe.

Eugene Atget:

He was a photographer in France, Paris in the 19th century, he took wide views and diffuse lights. I like his work because of the colour of his work, it shows the past really well and how they didn’t have normal cameras like we do now, the colour gives the photos more of a unique look and also makes them look old.

I went to town, my plan was to take photos of old buildings because it links in with my novel. My main idea was to take photos of the buildings but also used some leading lines to make it more interesting because the lines make you look straight ahead but also at both sides of the lines, to help you focus more. I used sunglasses for some of my photos because it changed the colour to orange through them and I feel like this makes the photo lack some colour as orange is a warmer colour, so that gives the image that the old cameras had in the past so it allows you to feel like you’re in the past with the photo. And when I put the camera too close, I realise it turned purple or a pink colour because of colour theory. However, I preferred orange for my photography work because it links more to A Christmas Carol because of the old feel it gives. Next time I want help so that it’s easier for me to control the sunglasses while taking the photos, and I would take more experimental photos with them. Also I would take more photos with leading lines because those photos add more to the photos.ub

Cyanotype printing:

I am going for a shoot this Friday and take photos of old buildings for the cyanotype because it links to A Christmas Carol and this is only for experiments. Personally I think the buildings will look good with the cyan colour. I also want to do a ghost one by taking photos in the studio and then printing them out and doing the cyanotype because I think it’ll give that creepy effect and it looks like the ghosts from a Christmas carol (past, present, future).

1. Mix two chemicals to create photo sensitive solution of ‘sensitizer’.
2. Brush, smear, or soak the sensitizer into cotton-based watercolour paper.
3. Create a negative image on a transparency with a laser/inkjet printer or copy machine.
4. Place the negative over the dried, sensitized paper.
5. Expose to UV light.
6. Wash the image in water to develop.
7. Hang to dry.

Old building photos:

I went to town in the afternoon to take photos, it was sunny but cold, my idea was to take photos of old looking builds because A Christmas Carol was set in Victorian times so I tried to take photos of similar buildings. I took these photos because they link to my topic and it also meant I could try a new technique, cyanotype. I was trying different angels of the buildings so that we can see which ones the best I also changed how dark and light the photo is so that the photo can be darker so that it’s giving me more spooky, scary Victorian times so that it also links more into A Christmas Carol. For most of my photos I was near the ground looking upwards at the building because it makes the buildings look taller and wider which was common in Victorian times.

My cyanotype:

Proposal:

Section 1: Rationale
(approx. 150 words)

One of the new techniques I learned is how to use different types of lighting techniques in the studio to make the lighting fit the person better and to improve the portrait. I’ve learnt in the last topic how to overlay creepy doll faces onto a portrait to make it look more natural. I like this technique because now I know how to make overlays look more natural. This links with my specialist creative practice because my specialist creative practice is nature photography but also portrait photography and the overlays will help if the person wants a different background or add more to the background or onto her or even if they want to add another person or animal or plant to the photo. The overlays help with that and now I will know how to make it look smoother so that it looks more natural and not if I just placed it there.

Section 2:
Project concept
(approx. 250 words)

In our topic novel, I have chosen A Christmas Carol. In the novel there’s ghosts, past, present and future, I think they will be my main focus because it shows the transformation between the person, shows them in the past, present and future. It shows how people can change; it shows character development. I want to make a recreation of the ghosts by taking photos in the studio of people struggle in different ways and show the character development in Scrooge how he became a better person than he was at the beginning, he was selfish, arrogant, grumpy and then he became selfless, happy, he started helping the poor by giving to charity. I used ai to help me find the research and google helped too with the research. Ai helped me find some photographers that link with A Christmas Carol such as Steve McCurry, I like his work, it’s vibrant which attracts, he does portraits which links to my specialist area which is nature and portraits. His most famous work is a woman in red with green eyes, she stands out because it’s vibrant, which attracts people to the photo. I want to take my photos in the studio, I want to do something similar to the portraits but also change it into a character development in photos. I also want to do some work on the real meaning of Christmas, giving to others, spending time with family, I want to do some bokeh photography with Christmas lights behind and a present in front with one person giving it to another.

Section 3: Evaluation
(approx. 100 words)

I have learnt not to judge the topic by just the name because the more you look at it, the more you can figure out. I plan to take quite a bit of photos this topic because I’m not sure what I want for my final piece so I want options, and you just never know what could come up. I want to do bokeh photography for sure because it looks cool, and it fits into my book because its character development while its Christmas and also it links in with Steve McCurry because the Christmas lights behind the person will make it look brighter, and we can have a person giving to a different person a bright present or bright colours.

Technical Skills deep dive:

I am going to do leading lines and I have tried this before, I think I did well but I want to see if I’ve improved or not. I don’t think I mastered fully that is why i want to try again because I want to see how much I’ve improved. It links into my novel because Eugene Atget takes photos of sketchy ways and old buildings so I’ll take photos of pathways with old buildings on the sides of the pathway. The lighting is an issue because sometimes it’s too dark or too light and it just doesn’t always work out how I want it to because of weather and how dark/ light the outside world is. I want to improve it because I like leading lines and I want to see how I can improve it and make it look better.

Bokeh:

Bokeh- the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image, whether foreground or background or both. You create some distance between the subject and the background to create the bokeh effect.

I chose to try studio work and it went well, some photos didn’t work because the focus wasn’t right but I got some really good shots. This technique is called bokeh, I tried different things with this technique, at first I put a skull in front of it test out the lighting and to see how it will work. I feel like I did well with this technique because I added photos that have just lights, focusing on one light and then the background is blurry but I also got some shots with a teddy in it because it links into my novel because the novel is about reflect and this links because children like teddies, like tiny Tim and how Scrooge treated Tim and his family.

Photo 1:

Photo 2:

I decided to do studio work, to do bokeh. I wanted to experiment with different photography techniques in the studio and outside photography, this shoot relates to A Christmas Carol because it’s to do with Christmas and the lights are a part of the Christmas spirit. I took this photo by focusing the camera onto one singular light so that makes the background blurry, bokeh style. You also need quite a bit of lights behind it so that it works out better, I actually took this photo on accident but I like how it splits, on one side there’s lights and the other doesn’t, it’s interesting. I added different settings such as saturation to make the lights have a different shade of colour, I also changed the background colour to make the photo more eye catching and interesting. To make it more eye catching, I also used the colour balance and changed it a little so we can see more colour so that it’s more unique. The levels make the photo more darker or lighter depending on what you need or want, however, I made my photo darker because it suits my photo better. My biggest challenge was for the camera to actually focus on the one light to improve that I will make sure the wires are still and not moving and ask for help when needed. I will also improve by adding something relevant in front of the lights. For any future bokeh I’m going to improve by using more lights so that the full background is used or use different lights or even try it outside to experiment with it.

Photo 3:

I tried combining two photos together I don’t like it, however I did step out of my comfort zone to try and create something new. I cropped the building photo then overlayed onto the bokeh photo, I put the building photo into lighten overlay so that it fits the photo better. After that I erased some of the building photo so that it fits more of the line between the lights and none light bit that’s where the building photo was put. However, I don’t like this photo because the editing isn’t good, I didn’t make the line between the photos smooth, it’s too sharp but at least the photo is unique and interesting. In the future if I want to do something similar to this I will ask for help on how to make the line more smooth between the photos and I will try to edit more photos together.

My final piece:

Firstly you have to mix 2 chemicals together and they both have to have the same amount so that it’s 50/50 for both chemicals. After that, I painted the fabric all over, you also have to add newspaper or card box or some card under the fabric so that the chemicals don’t stain the table. Then you have to blow dry the fabric so that it’s bone dry it can’t be wet at all.

Next step is to print out a photo of your choosing, you need to turn the photo black and white and go into levels after and make the photo quite dark so that you can see it better on the fabric. Then you place the printed photo onto the dry fabric, I also added ghosts to it to fit more of the Christmas Carol vibe. After you do all of that you put the cyanotype under the uv light for around 5 up to 7 minutes depending on which uv light you use. After you take it from the uv light you’ve got to put it into water and wash out all the chemicals and then hanging up for it to dry.

This is my final piece, it’s a cyanotype of a building with ghosts, I created this to represent A Christmas Carol. The ghosts represent the ghost of past, present and future and the building behind the ghost looks old which links in with Christmas Carol because it was set in Victorian times and they had lots of old buildings. Lots of Victorian buildings are still around, Bradford is full of old looking buildings.

Final evaluation:

In my final image I decided to present Christmas Carol by doing a cyanotype of an old building, the old building gives off Victorian times. The Victorian time is important in this topic, novel, because A Christmas Carol was set in Victorian times. However, I also added the ghosts because they represent the past, present and future, which were in the novel showing Scrooge that he has to change, or he will end up alone because he was selfish and arrogant. I used different techniques in this topic, I used leading lines and on each side there’s old buildings, I also took lots of photos of buildings at different angles to make the buildings more interesting. Another technique of photography I used, was bokeh in the studio, the Christmas lights helped to link it with the novel because the novel was during Christmas time. I added a teddy in front of the lights to show the scene where Scrooge sees tiny Tim and how he was skinny and couldn’t walk properly because his parents couldn’t afford to get better care for him, then Scrooge started understanding how he needs to be selfless and actually help the poor the teddy represents tiny Tim because children love teddies and the lights are Christmas. Most of my research has come from ai, I asked the ai what photographers link to A Christmas Carol and then it gave me Eugene Atget, Thomas Annan and lots more. I chose these two because they both do photography of buildings and I linked both of them in my photos, I used Eugene Atget by trying to get similar colour which I used sunglasses that had an orange effect. I put the sunglasses in front of my camera while taking photos of buildings because the orange colour makes the photo seem more old and it gives that sense of how photographers used to take photos in like 19^th century. Most of my work was based outside so I had to be careful not to get people in the photos especially their faces. I also had to be careful so that I don’t get into people’s way or when I was taking some photos on the road, I had to be careful with cars and make sure it’s a green light for pedestrians. I also had to be really careful with my camera because it snowed while I was taking photos so the snow could have had damaged because the camera could have gotten wet from the snow. In the future I will take more photos and show my favourites and my least favourite and explain why and what I did. I will also try different photography techniques and improve my editing skills and learn more about photoshop and try different things in photoshop.