Insentient Portrait Series, 2011
Insentient Portrait Series, 2011
Antique malls are ever-changing “cabinets are curiosity” for me. I particularly enjoy the personalities of each booth and how they are displayed. Within these booths, I find that the mannequins, dolls, and statues that live within these spaces are dramatis personae – not just objects on a shelf. Like humans, some have a long-term or permanent role to play and some are unsettled, filling a position for only a brief period of time. The one thing they have in common is the vendor of the booth. The vendor is the master that controls the role(s) they are to play. Although I like to call these spaces “found scenes”, the act of photography essentially changes the scene from a still life to a portrait of that character in its habitat.
This series of portraits is an exploration of the identity of these inanimate figures brought to life by their role in life, and how the viewer draws on the clues and their own interpretation to create meaning.
Shot with Twin Lens Medium Format Camera
Silver Gelatin Fiber Paper
Printing Color Passes
Gum Bichromate printing is an alternative process that allows you to print as many or few colors as you prefer, using watercolor pigment. Here are a few trial prints and how they look after each color pass. Each pass consists of coating the paper with sensitized pigment solution, drying, contact print exposure under UV light, development, and drying.
“silhouetted posies”
Cyan Pass using Cyanotype & Yellow Pass
(with Gum Bichromate printing you can use Cyanotype for the Cyan Pass in lieu of a blue pigment)
Magenta and Black Pass
(The Black Pass tends to stay very light. You can build any color up with multiple passes)
Final Cyan Pass with Cyanotype
(In a smaller print the cyanotype responded nicely, these were 3″ x 4″. The cyanotype can have a tendency to bead up on larger surfaces that have a lot of gum built up).
“summertide”
This is a trial print in which I was working with curves and a different method for preparing my digital negatives in attempt to get more detail in the hair and face.
Cyan Pass using Cyanotype
Yellow Pass
Magenta Pass
Black Pass (The method I was trying did not work well on this seperation negative. It did not block the highlights and muddied down the print).
Final Cyan Pass (Cyanotype. This is an example on how the Cyanotype may not work well on larger prints. This is around 7″ x 11″ and you can see areas in which the cyanotype beaded up). You will also be able to see that this method compared to the image below, can produce flat flat/dull results. I have not tried to build the colors up with multiple passes … that may be the answer to producing a richer look.
This is the “summertide” print using gum for each layer, including the Cyan pass. The exposure time was a lot higher as well. While I find the rich quality to be absolutely gorgeous, I lose the detail because the pigment layers begin to block up. In the mean time, I’ll continue to work to find a happy medium between the above print and this print.
Gum Bichromate over Cyanotype (Trying Something Completely Different)
“flux” A/P
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“speckled avis”
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“catalogue”
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Cyanotype Development and Toning
This first set of Cyanotype prints are developed in a water bath for five minutes, water and a couple capfuls of peroxide for 2-5 minutes, and a wash for five minutes.
The two sets of Cyanotpye prints below are developed in vinegar for 1 minute and washed in water for about 20 minutes. Iit takes a lot longer for the water to clear with this method, but the vinegar brings out the mid-tones and intensifies the prussian blue beautifully. (5% glacial acetic acid to 95% water yields identical results).
The following two sets are toned with tea. Note: I have not yet toned any cyanotpe prints that have been developed with vinegar.
This set was wet, bleached with Arm & Hammer sodium carbonate, washed, toned with black tea (8 bags of Lipton tea to 2 quarts of water, boiled and cooled to room temperature) and washed again until water ran clear. The second image was coated again with Cyanotype, exposed and developed with the water/peroxide method.
The next two images were wet, bleached with Arm & Hammer sodium charbonate, washed, toned with black tea (8 bags of Lipton boiled in 2 quarts of water and cooled to room temperature), washed until water ran clear, placed in bleach bath for a second time and washed, back into the tea for a second time as well, and a final wash until water ran clear. The second image was coated with cyanotype again, exposed and washed with the water/peroxide method.
Finally, here is a set that I toned in coffee. The steps were the same as the tea tone. I wet, the cyanotypes, bleached in sodium carbonate, washed, toned in coffee (1/2 cup of cheap black coffee brewed to 12 cups of water and cooled to room temperature) and a final wash until water ran clear.
Excellent sources worth noting (I didn’t follow any exactly, but researched and gleaned information from each before setting out to work on my own prints):
http://www.trollop.com/cyanotype-toning.html
http://mpaulphotography.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/cyanotype-toning-the-basics/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fbfotografie/7110895809
Must have resource! —–> The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by Christoper James <—–
Thank you very much for visiting my photo blog!
Senior Exhibit – Spring 2013
Senior Exhibit (2013)
Juried Exhibit — Each student is guaranteed that at least one of their pieces will be selected. I had a diptych, three cyanotypes and a packaging tape installation piece selected.
My packing tape transfer “The Context of a Man” was awarded Juror’s Choice.
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I ❤ Gum Printing
It’s been several months since I have been able process Gum Bichromate prints. I’m in love with the process and I’m ready to get back to it! Unfortunately, I’m still a student, so the equipment is only available during semester sessions. Thus, I’m in search of an UV exposure unit so I can continue processes such as this at home and explore with other materials. Here are my “successful” beginner prints (I say “successful” because there is obviously a lot to learn still, but I’m very happy with how they turned out):
I also had the privilege of showing these at a local gallery as well as a newspaper interview. http://www.newspressnow.com/life/st_joe_live/theater_fine_arts/article_062a4634-0feb-508f-a5f4-107c1fe700ea.html
Gum Bichromate Beginnings
Here are my beginnings of the experience that IS: Gum Bichromate.
Original Image: B&W Medium Format
Digital Image Design (The texture is a result of how the image was translated after being cropped)
The following images were taken with my cellphone, so pardon the quality.
Tricolor print from one greyscale negative.
Magenta Pass (In the wash — bad light)
Yellow Pass
Final Pass: Cyan (Blue pigment) I think the pigment mixture was too thick.
I smoothed the layer with a Hake Brush, but it still bubbled. I do, however, love
the rich sepia tone!
CMYK Separation
“K” Pass – Black
“Y” Pass — Yellow
“M” Pass — Red
“C” Pass — Blue
I’m not sure why there is more “Magenta” reading through than the “Cyan” separation (compared to the digital design that I did the CMYK separation negatives). I also think I need to run another “K” pass. I’m thinking either some of it washed away after developing the other passes, or it just looks too weak compared to the other color passes.
All in all though, I feel that these are pretty successful for my first Gum Prints. I also realize that I have to embrace the results — that I cannot totally control the results, but learn from them …
Nude Study (Cyanotype on Watercolor Paper)
These are still a work still in progress. I want them to all have the same tonal quality.
I Was A Little Girl
In a past documentary series, She Plays, I photographed my daughter during different times of her personal creative play. I am intrigued by her creative problem solving while she is in her own world of play. Though man-made items are provided for her playtime, she is quick to repurpose a given object to her advantage. While a wand is simply a wand in one moment, it becomes a microphone in the next, which then becomes a gasoline nozzle in the moment after that. During this time of observation, I often remember how I used to play, and how I repurposed objects and spaces to my advantage.
In, I Was A Little Girl; I placed my daughter in scenes to introduce her to the playtime of the girl that I was and to have her reenact an activity. In the series, the subject becomes a dual character — that of herself and that of a child that came before her. The scenes are both observed and directed. I allowed her to interact on her own to some extent, but she was also given slight direction.
I edited the digital images with Photoshop adjustments, and to further suggest a feeling of time or memory, I created an original filter and used Photoshop blending modes to add the illusion of surface texture to the photograph (which is visible on the actual prints themselves).
Narrative Series Treatment Example
I am currently working on a narrative series. Here is a scene that probably won’t be included in the series, but it is an example of what I am doing to add texture.
High-Def Hypnosis
One day, while watching television, I caught myself in somewhat of a hypnotic, meditative state. My husband was laughing about a scene on a sitcom, and I have to admit that although I was watching the same show he was, I had no idea what happened. I was so busy thinking on something else that I wasn’t even absorbing the information from the television, except for maybe in my subconscious.
I then pondered on the fact that the images flashing before me became mental fuzz, which made me then think on photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s work with photographing movie palaces and drive-ins. His architectural documents are also theoretical, in that the photographer is presenting a full-length movie in a single frame.
I then began to wonder what could happen if I loosely nuanced the theoretical side of Sugimoto’s work by photographing scenes displayed on a television screen. My purpose was to visually capture several exposures in one frame, but to also create interesting compositions and thus simulate the hypnotic effect that a television tends to induce. Instead of creating a descriptive document, I wanted to capture abstractions of images coming through the television screen through scene changes or movement.
These resulting images demonstrate the visual result of my experimentation. I found that when I extended the exposure time, not only would I capture choppy motion blur in some shots, but multiple exposures in other shots. And at times, I would get both effects in one frame. By doing this and continuously shooting, I found that I had to rely on happy accidents and that each frame that I exposed was a “shot in the dark” as it were. I couldn’t predict how each frame would turn out, which was really intriguing to me.
First Person
Documentary
She Plays
Documentary
Color Temperature
Exploring effects of color temperature on color photographs in a variety of lighting situations as well as the practice of white balance.
2 – Daylight (Condensation on Windshield, Lightbulb in Wind
2 – Tungsten Lighting (Dead Plant Outside, Cell Phone and Pocket Change)
2 – Florescent Lighting (Glass Bowls, Paint and Woodcut Block
2 – Combination Lighting (Fork in Microwave, Figurine Double Shadow)
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