PART 3: Reproductive Processes

PART 3: REPRODUCTIVE PROCESSES

THEORY 3: Copying, Capturing, and Reproducing
REBEKAH MODRAK

this essay looks at ... 
the photograph as physical imprint, Walter Benjamin and the aura of the work of art, Otsuka Museum of Art's full scale reproductions, genetic and photographic copies, Sherrie Levine's photographs of photographs, the implications of cloning, Edward Steichen's exhibitions of world events, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's stacks of prints, collecting cartes-de-visite and facebook friends, a brief survey of printing technologies, advertising and the industrial revolution, transmitting photographs, mass media from picture magazines to grass roots journalism and cell phones, material waste and collage, collage by the Futurists, Dadaists, Fluxists, Romare Bearden, Betty Hahn, and others, reproduction and Pop Art, a guide to legal rights to photograph, Google's Street View, Shizuka Yokomizo's photographs of strangers, the ethics of reproduction in war photography, refusing to photograph as a form of resistance, Native Americans and photographing as an act of power, re-photographic survey projects, Cindy Sherman's film stills and other contemporary rephotographic projects, rephotography as a way to deal with trauma, Civil War reenactments as photographic acts, and more ...

PRACTICE 3: Reproductive Processes: Tools, Materials, and Processes
REBEKAH MODRAK

low-tech positives and negatives

learn to ...
record surfaces with rubbings
photocopy negatives and positives
transfer images with solvent, wintergreen oil, inkjet, acrylic medium, contact paper, or woodcut

recording images: film and digital sensors

learn ...
about types of film, and film characteristics
how black and white and color films produce an image
about digital sensors' size, pixels, image quality, ISO, bit depth, color space, and dynamic range
how film and digital sensors see and record color of light
about color casts and how to correct them with filters and Camera Raw

processing images: developing film

learn to ...
set up a work area for loading, processing, and printing film
work safely with chemicals
store and mix chemicals
process black and white film in a small tank
evaluate negatives

printing images: traditional processes

learn to ...
make black and white test strips and prints
make photograms
create a darkroom contact sheet and contact composites
work with liquid photographic emulsions such as Liquid Light
screenprint

processing digital images: digital workflow

learn ...
to implement a digital workflow
to name, organize, and process digital images with Adobe Bridge or Adobe Lightroom
about file formats

printing images: digital printing

learn ...
color management
to calibrate your monitor
to choose paper, inks, and print profiles, and to softproof and print digital images
to print black and white on a color printer
to make a digital contact sheet

other printing options

learn to ...
print at commercial labs and presses
create portraits with photobooths