Ashley Fletcher

  5/24/21 Monday Written at 2:20pm I got to work in the darkroom at 8:00am and worked continuously until 11:25am where I had to leave for a senior seminar. I returned back to Slocumb at 12:50pm and ended the day at 2:15pm. Therefore, I spent 4.84 hours on my senior project today. When I was working, I was in the darkroom developing my prints. I was very efficient today and was able to get a lot of work done. One of my goals for senior project was to have at least three prints to share for Wednesday. I have already completed this goal. As of today, I have four prints ready to display. Tomorrow I hope to see how many more prints I will be able to finish. Additionally, I will need to frame my work to have it ready for display on Wednesday.

  5/23/21 Sunday Weekly Reflection Written at 6:30pm I have made a lot of progress on my black & white photography senior project this week. This past week I have focused a lot of my efforts in the darkroom. In the darkroom, I used an enlarger and chemicals to create prints of my negatives. This week I have learned that creating a final print can be a long process. For example, I worked for several hours on my bicycle wheel print. It takes a lot of time because the editing of the image can only be done prior to the developing process. Therefore, if I see something I want to fix or change I have to redo the print. Many of my negatives had a lot of gray space so I had to use filters in the enlarger to try and minimize the gray areas. This also took time because I had to play around with what filter to use as well as how much time to use. Before I decide on an amount of time to use on an image I have to do test strips. When I change filters I have to redo the test strips because...

  5/22/21 Saturday Written at 10:00pm Today was a short day for my senior project. I got to Slocumb at 9:30am and stopped working at 11:15am for a total of 1.75 hours. Today I focused my work in the darkroom. I played around with different frames to try and see which one I like the most. Additionally, I used a lot of different color filters today in the enlarger. The goal of the filter is to try and erase the gray areas in the print. I focused a lot on an image of leaves today and tested different time settings and filters. On Monday, I plan to finalize another photo to be able to present. I uploaded an image on the drying rack that I use after my photos go through the developing process.

  5/21/21 Friday Written at 8:45pm I starting working on my senior project at 7:55am and stopped for lunch at 11:15am. This morning I remade the chemicals for the darkroom and took out the old chemicals. I spent a lot of time working on little details today. The majority of my time spent this morning was working on the bike wheel frame. I played with different time settings and filters. I also burned and dodged the image which is a technique used when more light is needed in a particular area and not the frame as a whole. I now have an image of the bike wheel that is at its final state, I will have to frame it in the near future. After lunch, I returned to work at 11:50am and packed up for the day at 2:00pm. After lunch, I continued my work in the darkroom and finalized a leaf frame I was working on. Overall, I spent 5.5 hours today on my senior project.

  5/20/21 Thursday Written at 9:30pm I began my work today at 8:00am and got right to work in the darkroom. I worked more on the leaf frame and almost got it ready to present. There are still a few dust particles that I am going to get off of it. I also worked on another frame of the Proctor pond and Slocumb in the background. I paused my work at 10:50am to go to the senior project mandatory seminar. Once that ended, I returned back to work at 12:30pm and worked up until 2:30pm and totaled 4.83 hours worked for the day. After the break, I started to work on a frame that focuses on a bicycle tire again a texted background. I believe this shot will make a good final product because the details on the bike are very noticeable. Tomorrow I plan to work more in the darkroom and do the final touches on some of the images that I will present in the future. I have included a picture of the bike test strip I was working on.

  5/19/21 Wednesday Written at 4:17pm Today I arrived at school at 8:55am and worked until 11:05 for a lunch break and returned back to work at 11:25am. In that time I cut my film that was hanging into sections. I then placed those sections into a clear sheet which is designed for negatives. Once all the film sections have been places in the sheets I got the lightbox set up. I looked at the negatives through the lightbox to get an idea of which frames I liked. I then add a red mark with a sharpie to the frames I like. I have added a picture down below which shows the negatives and the red mark. After, I made the chemicals in the darkroom so I would be able to work in there. Today I focused on a frame I had of leaves. I did a bunch of test strips today and even added a color filter in the enlarger. Tomorrow I plan to work more on the leaf frame and possibly work on another frame.