Creating props

As it is very expensive to buy turn of the century garments and accessories I have decided to create my own, so I can keep the costs down. 

Above is an example of a hat I made copied from a vintage advertisement from the decade 1900-1910, although it is not exact it will create the same feeling in my photographs.

I plan to make a lot more pieces and to create a lot of props for my photos to give an authentic look to my final outcome. 

Experimenting with expired Polaroid film

When I purchased a 600 Polaroid camera it came with a set of expired but unused film, I thought that this would be something interesting to play with. 

My first shot didn't come out what so ever and I thought that that would be how the rest turned out however they did not, and it actually created some really interesting effects. Each photo came out slightly different and with a sepia tone, with stripes down the middle. 

I found these really interesting and they look distressed, I have now bought in date Polaroid film so that I can shoot my photos with that to see how it comes out. 

What I've Learnt So Far and What Could Go Wrong

So far i have learnt a lot about photography in the 20th century and how it developed, to start my research i decided to go to the national gallery, i did this so that i could see how people were recorded pre the 20th century to see what an impact photography made to the public and to common people who would have be unable to pay for a portrait.

I have already purchased various cameras and film and although this is very expensive i feel like it will be much better to recreate the photography using cameras from the correct time period. when using old, damaged and out of production cameras there can be a lot of problems, such as; the film not working correctly with the camera, the photos coming out smeared, or not at all, not understanding how to use the camera, the film not being able to get developed as no where is able to.

Solving and dealing with these problems:
1) I have bought a lot of film and checked that it is able to be developed at a local photo specialist store.
2) The photography is domestic so mistakes may and will have been made this should hopefully only add to the look of my collection.
3) i have downloaded the original instruction manuals for as many as the cameras as i have been able to and have read them over so i can use the cameras correctly.
4) I have tested out the effects of using expired polaroid film, which i will discuss in my next post.

Researching

Today I was researching fashion throughout the 20th century, and posting photos on my Tumblr, I also sorted through personal photos, this gave me a personal insight into the late 20th century, i enjoyed doing this and gathering my research this way. i will need to look at a lot more photos to understand more about the period, i plan to focus on pre sixties when i look tomorrow.
I also want to doing some further research into photography in the 20th century and do some posts on how it developed and the introduction of colour and television.

why i chose to use tumblr as my sketchbook

I chose to use Tumblr instead of a sketchbook so that i could play around with my layouts more and i enjoy doing work digitally. My sketchbook  has always been my weakest work and i feel that i can really improve my work by using tumblr, it means i can layer images and collections together easily and edit my work simply. below is a screen shot from my Tumblr, i chose this layout as it was like a collection of photographs, this relates back to my theme of lost and found photographs, the theme means that i can put collections of photos together with similar themes so that i can talk about them as a whole.

ellywoodfmp.tumblr.com

Planning

I have started planning my FMP, these are my original notes from planning, i knew i wanted to do something to do with fashion history and photography as photography is something i want to develop my skills in and fashion history is my favourite topic.