Lauren Carr: Life Cycle SLR Photographs.

These first few photographs were taken of baby shoes, the shoes being isolated adds to eeriness of then maybe being abandoned, or a child gone missing, could tell a story of a child being mourned for ect... Relates to life cycles because of the sizing showing the first steps of life. They were taken on a film camera but it wasn't a proper SLR, it was an auto focus older retro camera, We figured out after developing the film that the focus couldn't have worked too well because the majority of photographs on this film were out of focus so this wasn't too successful but I did quite like the theme of it. I would have taken it further but I later took more interest in SLR photographs that I took further below.

Test strip for one of my photographs of the shoes. Split the time in seconds, 3 worked best, high contrast would be needed so that it doesn't look under exposed.

This photograph was slightly out of focus, also water stained but I quite liked its effect, it was quite old and ruined looking.

Main attraction in photograph is out of focus, shoes in background aren't, not too keen on this composition, too much black, should probably dodge it slightly during exposure.

Favourite composition, shadows work well in contrast with shoes but could have been perhaps around 0.2 seconds more exposed.

over-exposed, too dark, not a good photograph but could have been good in composition.

Again out of focus but could have been better if I had used a slightly more advanced camera where the focus would have been in my control.

All the photographs below were taken on a film SLR, I could focus them myself and chose the aperture appropriate so I was more confident with these.

Here are bumble bees, dragon flies and a garden snake preserved in glass pots, shows the end of life, dead species. I liked the idea of photographing them because of the theme and set up the composition in their order of height. The aperture for this whole film was kept of either 2.8 or 5.6 and shutter speed fairly quick on 200 so the image was captured exactly as it was because no movement was involved.

I preferred this one because the snake is the most horrifying and that is what is kept in focus, I focus fully on it so it was the first thing you are drawn to in this composition.

This vase above had an interesting result, The white background and the light colours of the flowers blended to a sort of grey, they look unreal, even sketched, exposure time for development was around 2 seconds which probably wasn't enough in terms of contrast but I liked the way it turned out.

Exposure time 2.5, slightly more contrast, similar effect to the flowers before. paper like effect. They look alive with a healthy texture but also dying.

I then started to photograph a skeleton on the art room and later involved people to show life cycles in terms of humans, our bones underneath or death. Test strip above showed that about 3/3.5 seconds worked best, even though it was slightly moved resulting in a blur.

Above is an over exposed print, Although I liked it because the bones still shone through they just looked darker. Composition shows dead flowers in the skeleton (dead human) and somebody alive works well.

My favourite, perfect contrast, like a wedding photo composition. Inspired by a video of my favourite band where a member dances with the skeleton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bGzWyHbu0.

Person out of focus in background compared to skeleton, shows both appearances of people. Links with Rankin in terms of showing what humans are underneath.