Over the weekend I returned to one of my favourite places with my Sony A7 and a Mamiya 7. I got up super early to drive down Newquay to catch the morning surf which connected me with my surroundings and tuned my eye to being around the sea. I have found that photographing the moorland comes more naturally to me so I have had to tune my eye differently when I am shooting seascapes. I wanted to capture as much negative space as I could when shooting my image while also capturing the detail in the ever-changing ocean. This is the first time that I have taken medium format out with me for this project so it was nice to rekindle with the way of working. It allows you to slow down the process of making photographs. With only 10 shots in the camera, you have to make sure that you are 100% happy with the composition before you release the shutter. This is something that I try to do when shooting on my digital camera, however, it is too easy to rush the composition when you know you are not limited to how the number of shots that you have. I feel that this was a successful shoot. I am now at a point in the project where my visual aesthetics are beginning to be refined and I am finding an identity for the body of work. However saying this, I am aware that I need to make sure that the message and narrative of the work is clear and is within the brief that we have been set.
Digital Images
There is a lot more contrast in the digital images compared to the ones shot on 120 film. I used a film stock of 400 so shot the same on my Sony A7 as I did on the Mamiya 7. The image of the bench places the viewer in front of the seascape almost as if they are sat on the bench themselves. I want the same connection to be made between the audience and the landscape as I have when I am standing there and capturing silent moments that I have to myself and the camera. After being drawn into the bench, I am drawn onto the horizon line and up to the sky. The sky is something that holds value in every shot that I take. However, it is not something that I have explored on its own and I think In the future I should begin to explore the atmosphere that the light travels through before hitting the physical world.
120 Film Shot on Mamiya 7
I shot the Mamiya 7 with HP5 Plus 400 and developed it myself in college and then scanned it with the Hasselblad Flextight. The original scans had a slight green tinge to them so I reduced the saturation on all of the images and upped the contrast a small amount to achieve the aesthetic in these photographs. Usually, when shooting digitally the images that I create are high in contrast and detail. This is the aesthetic which I have been working on for this body of work, so shooting on film has opened a new way that I can visually produce my work. The grain and bleached out colours create negative space in the landscape and the contrast in small areas of the image create focal points of interest. This is something that I am going to further explore in my future work as the negative space opens the viewer’s mind to the silence and inner peace that I am trying to transfer from my inner spirituality to the audience.
This photograph holds negative space while carrying plenty of detail in the sea for the viewer to engage with. You are drawn to the line of the wave which carries through the image. This focal point takes the viewer through the detail and texture that is within the ripples of the ocean. This is the beautiful thing about shooting on 120 film, it captures the details and textures on a higher level than digital which I think makes the image feel alive. This aliveness in the photograph helps take the viewer to the same space that I was in when I was releasing the shutter button. The bleached out colours thin the gap between the sea and the sky connecting them together through tonal negative space which softens the contrast in the image. When you find inner peace and silence within the landscape you are taken to a head space which is quiet, peaceful and focused on the natural space you are in. In my photography I am recreating this feeling visually so that the viewer can be inline with the sublime feeling that acquires when I am out making photographs.