Eenie meenie miney mo …..
So I am really on the fence with this particular Image. At first I was certain I preferred the version on the left, which is actually the Negative version. Then I was going through my sketchbook doing cropping notes and I came across it’s Positive, and I was like man, now I am not sure. This happens allot for me since I like to see how each negative looks inverted when scanning, so it usually comes down to some fine minute detail I see that makes the image pop. I still think I am leaning towards the Negative version on the left though ……
Cliche Verre - 4x5” Negative exposed to plate consisting of carbon, ink, alcohol and film
Cosmic Waves
Right now my brain is so overloaded that it has gone blank, like trying to navigate through a thick fog in a field of pits. So till the fog clears I will enjoy sharing works in progress, enjoy.
Cliche Verre - 4x5” negative exposed to plate consisting of carbon, ink, cork and film
Interstellar Intrigue
Cliche Verre - 4x5” Negative exposed to plate fashioned with carbon, ink, alcohol, cork and film
Supernova …… goes pop
Here we have my first attempt at creating a “supernova” or really any type of spacial explosion. It’s interesting because when we see an image of a supernova through a telescope it’s just a tiny white dot …… boring. The amazing images you see from nasa and elsewhere are the aftermath really, taken by dozens of different telescopes (in many different ways) showing what remains from the massive explosion of the star which ultimately creates new life in its death.
Cliche Verre - 4x5” negative exposed to plate consisting of carbon, alcohol, ink and film
Petri Dish Nebula?
In reality I am going to most likely crop sections of this negative to print, I am just showing it as a whole for perspective at the moment. Thats the first hurdle to get over with this series I think, how not to just make a whole lot of micro biology looking images.
4x5” Negative - (Cliche Verre) - plate/template consisted of carbon, cork, alcohol and ink
Planet 626?
Ok so as I continue my "space and time" project I have left black holes behind ... for now. Now on to trying new ways and experimenting to create other ideas of the galaxy or what it could hold.
Planet 626? - 4x5" Negative exposed to a thing glass plate fashioned with ink, carbon, earth and film
A representation of 2020 …. from 1998
I have always liked Don Hertzfeldt since I saw Rejected over ten years ago along with his other shorts. For whatever reason, as my mind tends to wonder about when I am trying to sleep! It popped in my head that to me “Billy’s Balloon” is a perfect representation of 2020.
Digital darkroom blues….
Ok no pun intended btw ….. I really hate colour calibration, camera one ... camera two ..... camera one ….. camera two …… One on the right is the right profile but is blue/green, one on the left is different profile but comes out nice and black and white .... same paper .... ugh. Colour profiles and calibrations should be a fine science but it’s not and is a pain when you waste expensive paper/ink. This is why I like the real darkroom more ……. where I can waste expensive paper and chemistry on mistakes instead! …. so there!
Burning the daylight … ink?
Doesn’t really have the same ring to it does it? Anyways spent today arguing with a printer about colour correction while printing out test sheets for sketchbooks …. I feel like I am back in uni.
Spacial/cosmic values
Here is one of the last Images I created with the sole intent on creating my imagined version of a black hole. While it probably doesn’t quite work for the defining image of a black hole out of the 40+ I created, it definitely does have some “spacial/cosmic” value too it.
4x5” Negative exposed via fire (micro explosions) to custom plate composed of carbon, ink, alcohol and film
If seasons changed from week to week
So we had last week all week in the darkroom, lots of complete darkness for hours then light then back to dark and add a touch of red here and there. Next week we have excessive screen time, melting eye balls and plenty of headaches and never enough coffee. If seasons changed weekly I would have two one dark and one light back and forth week by week.
Is that what a photo looks like?
See I still take “normal” photos occasionally, if there is such a thing as a normal photo that is ….. Was trying out a couple new phone app’s for editing and ended up with liking Snapseed thanks for the recommendation John McDougall
The first of MANY hand crafted plates to come
Here we have one of my first Images created using a hand crafted glass plate. The "plate" consisted of glass layered with earth, carbon, alcohol and film, then exposed over a 4x5" negative using fire (micro explosions)
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.
Failure for the win
Well I have been slacking on my writing, but have been steadily chipping away at my visual ideas in the darkroom. In the mean-time here is a continuation of my attempts at creating my ideal image of a black hole. This one did not work for that at all, but it did provide interesting results. Thats how it goes some work many don't, but you will often be surprised by the "duds"
4x5" negative exposed to earth, carbon and fire (micro explosions)
Work, concept and practice in motion pt 4
I find the idea of “the void” interesting because it is something we still have today, even though we don’t classify it as an element. We do have a need to see and understand what is beyond ourselves and our space. No matter how far we can see into our universe and galaxy we push to see farther. This then got me thinking more about time because the further we see into space the further back in time we go, since we are still seeing light that is millions of light years away we are seeing light from millions of years ago. I have always had an interest in space and time and it really is a big subject that will twist your brain in half.
So I really like the idea, and concept of space and time but how do you use photography to express such a complex and abstract concept? I knew I wanted to push the way I had been working farther, but at the same time didn’t want to make three hundred more flashes and cracks. I struggle with conceptual work a lot …… like really a lot. I believe the image needs to be as strong if not stronger than the concept. Enough of this photo of a ruler in the corner then 2 pages about it, that’s just rubbish. But in the case of Uncontrolled abstraction and this follow up project I really see the thought process and ideas merging with the imagery and that’s not just because it’s my work, however I am biased.
In the absence of light ……
I do a lot of versions of any given one idea of a print/negative. I always like to do that one more (or twenty) just to be sure I have the one I wanted or close to it as possible. This is number 26 of over 50 from my search of creating an image to represent a black hole.
Work, concept and practice in motion pt 3
So that’s it, Uncontrolled Abstraction: The Elements is over right? No, in one way yes but in another way, not by a long shot. In the middle of the project I realised I was making allot of work that didn’t fit how I would like it to with the theme of “the elements” Yes I was using natural elements, but the other side of the project was using the elements to create alternative landscapes. What I was seeing were more cosmic or if you would “spacescapes” so ideas of a follow up project were already spinning.
While researching the elements which seems pretty simple right, earth, air, water fire there you go. So I started looking more into how the idea, representation, time and cultures viewed the elements. And while every culture and civilisation has the four basic elements in one way or another they also all have a fifth, the fifth is the void or aether. It has many different explanations but in the end it is the space beyond space, or the space beyond understanding, and I find that interesting.
Devoured light
I like this one as it creates an almost funnel/swirl (or both really) effect to it. The light is being pulled into the black hole or more so sucked into a vortex of the unknown.
Work, Concept and practice in motion pt 2
Another key part of my practice for this project is the loss of control, hens the “uncontrolled” in the title. This is because a few factors. When I expose negatives in Ice I have no control over the shifting of the negative in the water as it freezes, the formation of the ice or how it cracks once it begins to thaw during exposure. When I am exposing the negative to different elements or matter if you will. I am working in complete darkness, I have a rough idea how I would like the sand, dirt or carbon to lay across the film plane but even the slightest touch or breath of air can shift them. Oddly enough I find myself closing my eyes, in the pitch black while I am doing this. The other thing is that when I use the small explosions to expose the film the impact causes everything to shift and scatter.
This brings about the last part of the practice I suppose which is the abstraction of each piece. Each negative is an individual and will never be identical to the one before or after, there are of course similarities as it is the same practice being performed. Which then brings on the question of is it all too repetitive? So I have this body of work that technically consists of over three hundred images, some work, some are complete wastes and then some in my eyes are perfect. But are they all too much of the same just slightly different? Are people just going to see a bunch of white flashes and scattering dust and sand? Did I just waster hundreds of film to create the same thing over and over?
I often find myself once again in this spiral of negative thinking and self-talk, and honestly every creative does right? It is because I am far too close to my work, it is impossible not to be. Which in turn makes it impossible not to question everything about it, it’s my job I need to think, look and create then repeat if I am ever going to make something new. It is thoughts like these that roll in my head constantly, but one quote that rolls with them is the famous Edison quote "I haven't failed -- I've just found 10,000 that won't work." So it helps put things in perspective because I have about 20 images for a show out of 368 negatives, which is a bit better than 1 out of ten thousand.