Hi. I must have 2 rolls of b/w film shot and developed by Monday. The subject of this assignment is "Light". I need help with composition ideas. I plan to use penlights, bulb exposure, candles and blacklights. Using blacklights, how long should my exposure time be? I'm using t-max 400 film. Thanks for any and all responses.

-- Kathy Taylor (kjt02@comp.uark.edu), October 09, 1999

Answers

Kathy,

photography is light. don't play games with the topic, look around you and feel how light changes our perceptions, the way we feel and relate to objects, and how the same scene or subject changes character as the light moves, alters intensity, or changes direction.

exposure is used to capture how we visualize our subject, and is within our control. there is no correct exposure, necessarily. it is a judgement call, and you, the photographer must learn exposure theory to render your vision on film. best of luck.

-- Daniel Taylor (aviator@agalis.net), October 09, 1999.

what you want to do sounds like fun, but it also sounds like overkill on the part of creativity. I am also in a photo 1 class, and when we speak of light as a subject, it is usually refering to what was metioned above. For example find an interesting subject, be it a landscape, or building or statue. Or even a garden with fountains etc. and then shoot that scene all day. From the break of dawn until late in the evening. Bracket all of your exposures and I am sure you will learn alot from those two rolls. Then play on your own or turn that in as extra.(What you originally wanted to do) I believe you will learn alot about the t-max 400 and how your meter reads light and many other things if you do somehting like this. Good luck and I hope you are having as much fun with this as I am. P.S. If it makes you feel better I do all kinds of extra stuff once my regular assignments are done. Try making negative prints from negative film. Or printing black and white pictures from color negs, or better yet get a book at the library about Jerry Uelsmann. He did some really cool stuff in the dark room!

-- martha goldsmith (oscar@unidial.com), October 10, 1999.