photographic-garden-lecture-4

This workshop will be looking at alternative approaches to the use of colour in more eco-conscious, hand made and site-responsive filmmaking methodologies.

Current more eco-friendly processing methodologies, such as caffenol and plant developers, do not facilitate colour choices by the film artist, only those produced as a side effect of the processing materials. Joanna has been working with alternative approaches to producing colour and will share what has (and also what has not!) worked in her research experiments, hoping to offer support to those who are experimenting with their own local organic materials. Joanna will also share her approach of considering the organic nature of film emulsion, returning to heritage wool dying processes in her search for an alternative lineage to colouring (tinting) organic materials. Alongside, she has been exploring the possibility of using found materials from site, such as those from a Cornish tin mine, to tone the film.

Background: Before the invention of color film (in the 1950s), there was a lot of experimentation with ways and processes to give film colour. One of the most popular processes from the pioneering phase of motion picture film was "tinting & toning" of the black and white film image (formed by a silver emulsion). Tinting is the process of coloring the transparent (white) part of the image by immersing the film in a dye bath. When toning, the black metal silver particles in the film emulsion are converted to a color with chemicals.
As film itself was only invented after the industrial revolution, aniline dyes, discovered as a by-product of coal production, were used as standard, giving a stronger and more stable effect than those from plants or other found materials.

Joanna Mayes is a film artist living in Cornwall who explores the experience of being in a location at a particular time through the medium of film. She represents place through a layering of approaches to materiality: analogue film responds to the light in that place and time, physical outcomes are often charged with atmosphere from the site through use of materials of the locality, such as seawater for processing and lichen & berries for tinting the film.