Work, practice and concept in motion pt 5

Now just how to get the images in my head onto film, that’s always the problem isn’t it though, how to get the image in your head out of lala land and into the physical. My current practice is camera-less but not entirely lens-less. An interesting though about it is that my images aren’t a representation of a physical or three dimensional scene. Whether of something outside or of an actual object but instead the image is being created and happening on the surface of the film. I knew I wanted to keep working directly with the film in as much of a tactile way as possible, but for this body of work I wanted more control so working in total darkness all the time had to go.

 Time to let go of some hang ups, and in this case it was avoiding using cut outs or screens. When I say screens I mean graphic templates placed over the negatives then exposed to create the image. I was primarily avoiding doing this because I want and need the images to look natural or organic, not an obviously drawn out scene. This is when I came to discover Cliché Verre, this is a technique dating back to the 1850’s where you etch or paint onto a glass surface then expose it to photographic paper. A nice discovery since I had just started trying various techniques like this and I had never actual hear of Cliché Verre before.

 Anyways I have come around to the idea, and for this project it works well. I can now create a “plate” (as I refer to them) in daylight then expose them over the negative. It grants the control I was looking for and without the worry of the lines and contours of a drawn scene, they look natural.