Editing – Ruaridh Cameron

Editing: Part IV (Testing)

I’m not sure that this is editing as much as it is testing, thus the dual title. Anyway, today I have been busy finalising the final images I want to use on the wall for the exhibition.

These is the test prints that I made today, and over the past few weeks, the sheep which are in the third image up, where the only ones that have really caused me any issues. On my Mac which is slightly blue lit no matter what I do, they looked okay because everything else was already a little blue. Thats sorted now, I have edited it down to 11, and also have an option for only using 9 as well.

This a very rewarding process, a few people have said that I am perhaps over testing and being too precarious but I kind of enjoy it. The printing process is something I have always enjoyed, and testing is a part that I have only recently realised the importance of. Getting my 3400 images down to 11 for the wall was a fairly stressful process but now its over I’m happy that I took this many images and if I think I will take more images again for this project.

I will talk about post uni and continuing with this project in the next post.

Exhibition Possibilities: Part II

Recently I have been looking into which wall I would like and which wall I may get, so I will share with you a few of the ideas I have in mind. First of all, to get it out of the way, the default wall space, which isn’t my dream wall but, with 26 people we can’t all get what we want. I’ll just be happy to have my work on the walls. These may not be my final choices in fact I can already say a couple that haven’t made the cut. Like I have said previously I want to go with full bleed images because I don’t think that any single image tells the full story, not that I don’t trust an image to stand alone. Combining the images into such a full on wall display will hopefully help my work to be memorable, but we were told today by two people from the Carlisle Photo Festival, ‘you’re only as good as your weakest person’. So there needs to be an amazing network of support amongst us all.

. These are two ideas I have for my dream wall, the slant in the roof creates some issues, but also adds to the map aspect of the wall display. I think the option on the left is the one I am going to use, it looks neater and still shows off the images. I will be testing the line on the wall some time after easter and I will update you when I do.

Editing: Part III and Mounting: Part III

Today was another very productive day for me I spent most of it in university trying to decide on what photographs I am going to use. By the time we get to the exhibition you may have seen all of the images, but anyway, I had a tutorial with the two of my lecturers we discussed my edit for the wall and how I would display it. I will do another post about the wall display.

I printed a couple more of my prints onto A3 today which has helped me to dislike more of my photographs because of the dull days on which I was shooting some of the photographs are not 100% sharp which is a bit disappointing. I am going home for a week at Easter, so, if I talk to the local crofters again perhaps I can do a second visit, and get a couple more shots for the exhibition before time runs out.

Today I also tested my image onto A2, and I have learnt that I will have to be very careful with which images I choose. The bigger I go the more mistakes I notice, so I think A2 is the size Im going to stick with. There was also an incident with the printer it chopped the first full A2 print in half.

Finally for today, is (at the top of my page) a rough idea for a wall design. and then below that, sizes and prices for different mounting options. depending on the size I go for depends on the wall and amount of prints I get, I keep planning things for my dream wall, but I also need to plan for the other walls as well.

Mounting: Part II

Today we had hours of information, looking toward the mounting and framing process, and something came up that I had never thought about doing because (as my lecturer said) borders are something of a convention. With the right images a ‘full bleed’ could really have a positive change, it could help the series to flow or it could even open the images out and make them feel more open. The nature of my photographs could be opened up by this change, this tightly cropped image can suddenly breath and become an immersive experience. I will come back with more on my final edit and the ‘full bleed’ in the next couple over weeks, if everything goes to plan.

Getting onto the main topic of the post mounting, today we were shown a variety of different ways to mount our photography on to, Dibond being my personal favourite, the rigidity of the mounting material for me is the first positive, then it has a very sleek look form the side, the second positive. Its first major downfall however, its cost. It is nearly double the price of the next cheapest material on the list.

The other material that was an early favourite with everyone, was the 5mm black foamex, it is also pretty sturdy and has a very sleek look from the side, but printing on thick paper, as I may well do, might look odd when viewing the edges.

Another part of of today was seeing paper sizes in all their glory, you can be told them, look them up even imagine them but until you see them labeled in front of you you can’t know. B0 very large, A0 also very large, A1 however, that may be large but I think that it is a manageable size. Below our very own Hal holds up an example of B0. Below that again is Kayleigh holding up an A2 print to see how many we can fit into the default exhibition space.

Tutorial and Exhibition Possibilities: Part I.

Today I had a tutorial to discuss my final edit and make sure that I wasn’t going in the wrong direction. I ended up discussing plans for mounting and what I want to do with my wall. My lecturer took a photograph with my phone and told me to use it for my blog, so I will. Carrying on from that, the contents of my tutorial, I was able to see a sample of Dibond, and I’m leaning strongly towards that. Along with an idea that sprang from someone a few days ago, perhaps I would mount myself using a wooden mount? I’m intrigued by this idea, I wanted to incorporate something of the crofting world into my exhibition, and using wood would reflect traditions. I also talked about which wall I would like, which can’t really be said at this point because everyones work needs to be seen and the idea of ‘what, who, where?’ really needs to be established. But I put my name forward for one of the walls, and I’ve taken a photograph of it and I’ve begun to experiment with my line. The wall goes a long way up so theres a lot of issues with what to do with all that space. So, now that I’ve narrowed it down to 49 for my folio and book, I need to decide what 3-7 I want to use in my exhibition. So, there will be an ‘Editing: Part III’ fairly soon where I will discuss my decisions.

Editing: Part II

I think that sometimes when people think of editing they only think about photoshopping out cracks and flaws in a models face, but editing generally describes the whole process after taking the photographs and before the final prints. I confess that for my main projects I don’t really use photoshop or any other editing software to its full advantage (only playing with shadows/highlights/exposure) I find that if I do much more its very easy to see that I’ve tampered with my work and I’m a big fan of the photograph staying more or less how I took it.

This being part two of an editing post I will finish discussing my narrowing down of the final images, showing my final edit and a photograph of what I believe will be the final order of the photographs, showing the passing of time and the odd one out of time that doesn’t necessarily look out of time. I had great fun using this method, spending so much time with them it becomes easier to see the ones you don’t like and I’ve certainly come to dislike a few of my early favourites.

Editing: Part I

Just today I have been introduced to something new, a way of editing that involves spending a lot of time with my photographs. Starting with the always faithful, contact sheet which helped me bring ~100 photographs down to ~50. So onwards from there have prints on roughly an A5 piece of paper, I may be over describing, find a wall big enough an just start sticking them up in the order you want them. Something I did which I would advise if you are also going to use this editing technique is, if you have a rough idea of the order you want say like a timeline or sections have that laid out. Mine vaguely follows a timeline so I had them out in rough chucks of time.

Over describing, this is early days and I hope that I will keep looking at them and seeing ones I dislike and others that I think should stand alone. I will add an edit shortly with how it goes.