Large Format
The Class:
At the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO in Edmond, OK), the Photographic Arts majors have to take another form of film class called Large Format taught by Mark Zimmerman. It’s not like the common film you see now as 35mm or medium format 120 film. This one requires a big camera, a tripod, film holders, sheets of film, and a whole lot of patience.
During the class, we had six assignments. I know, sounds awesome right? Only six in the whole semester. *Cackling Intensifies* Yeah, you need to take into consideration that: 1) You share this one camera and the film holders with a partner. Luckily I had an awesome one, shout out to Emily. 2) Shooting and developing time and I did color film so I had to wait for my teacher’s schedule for him to develop it. Thanks, Mark! (Even though my final had 14 sheets of film to develop lol.) 3) We had to shoot roughs (if you were lucky that was it) and then shoot again for the final product to turn in. 4) Scanning, editing, and printing every photo you turn in. 5) There was only one scanner we all had to use to scan these negatives, so there were a lot of not-so-good days when it came to that with anyone in the class.
All of these images were shot on Kodak Ektar 100 4x5 from B&H and developed by Professor Mark Zimmerman
The Final: Heirlooms Of Omega
For the final, we were instructed to create a story with our images. I decided to photograph my Grandma Mickey’s personal possessions. Her name is Omega Bennett, my mom’s mom. When I told my mom about my idea she was pretty excited about me doing this. She immediately started dusting off all the bibles and the crystals before I even got the camera back from Emily.
Now, I have no memories of my Grandparents on my mom’s side. My Pop Pop passed before I was born and my Grandma Mickey passed when I was a child, but my mom would always tell me stories about them so it felt like I’ve known them forever. When doing this assignment my mom had a story for every single item I photographed. I know these items were all significant in some way.
The titles of each image in order:
”The Good Word” My Grandmother is a woman of God and was very much involved in the church. This is one of her Bibles on one of her favorite verses and her gold nugget necklace as a bookmarker (my little touch).
”Vase + Silk” This vase was always the center of my mom's coffee table. At one point my Grandmother would put silk flowers in the vase. I added the flowers around the vase and added lavender because that was her favorite color.
”Crystals” She had a ton of crystals and they stay nice a neat in the china cabinet so I don’t break them.
”Red Box” This box has always captured my attention and it was where a lot of jewelry went. She has a LOT of jewelry and a bunch of pearls. I wanted the pearls to make an appearance so I had them overflowing.
”Teacup” If you know me and have followed my photography, you know I love these teacups and photograph them a lot. This green one doesn’t get as much love as the two purple-blue ones, so I decided to showcase the green one with some bright pink flowers to really pop against the black background.
