Photograms

During my work on the Holocaust Awareness project, I followed a suggestion of working with photograms to potentially generate some ideas or material to work with. The following is Wikipedia's summary of the process:

"A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image that shows variations in tone that depends upon the transparency of the objects used. Areas of the paper that have received no light appear white; those exposed through transparent or semi-transparent objects appear grey."

After observing the process, I gathered a few things that could yield imagery to work with the project, as well as a selection of personal objects I just felt would be interesting to photogram. The following are some of the results:  (Excuse the grainy scans)

And finally, the image I produced for the project (As shown in the previous post):

I found the technique to be really interesting, with the surreal X-ray-like effect of the results, and the surprising potential for further exploration; changing variables such as light exposure time, light source and placement can create an array of effects with just one object.

Also, I only walked into doors and walls two or three times while in the darkroom...