Alternative Processes Photo

So last semester I took a class on alternative processes in photography, basically work with painted on photo-sensitive emulsions and the like. It was a terribly large amount of fun. Anyway, I was super lazy and just got around to scanning the bastards. Click on any image to open it full-size.


This is the first picture I created using the cyanotype chemistry. It's a very simple contact print, as are the next two (one of them using a different formula, thus the different tone). After that point we started using negatives printed on transparency film.

The negatives I used were actually old images I had lying about that I thought would be interesting for the process. The first came from my Object shoot, the other is of my old roommate in downtown Tampa... I actually printed this in reverse, by accident. Easy mistake.

The next process we worked with was Van Dyke, which yields that lovely brown. I experimented more with the brushing and application of the emulsion this time around, and frankly I adore the results. With the Van Dyke in some cases I took images originally on 35mm film and enlarged them for use in contact printing using litho-film. I think the litho images are much crisper than those made using the digital prints, but I don't think it's impossible to get the same results with practice.

The incorrigible Zillah, of course. Oh yeah, NUDITY. I guess I should have had some forewarning or something? Nah...

This is actually a happy accident. A piece of litho-film was accidentally exposed by two of my other negatives and some random things in the lab. I decided to actually make a print with the result, and I love the way it turned out. So much of working with processes like this is straight up experimentation.

Speaking of experimentation... For all I know, this image is unique in the world (well, I mean, other than being a unique print). It was originally a cyanotype image that turned out too dark. I coated it with the Van Dyke chemistry and re-exposed it (all these processes work by exposing the coated paper to sunlight with a negative placed on top, everywhere the light hits becomes dark). When I first pulled it from the wash I was ecstatic, the colors were to die for, but it darkened OBSCENELY during the dry down process. I didn't feel like writing it off as a loss, so I asked around and got some ideas. I acquired some potassium ferricyanide, which is used as a bleaching agent in silver print photography. Now, cyanotype is not a silver process, but the van dyke is, so I figured it might prove interesting. What you see above is the final, ghostly result.

Last but not least were the palladium prints. As the name suggests, instead of using silver (the standard) these prints are made with palladium. I had the most difficulty with these, of all the processes, mostly because the printer didn't get along with me when I tried to create the negatives. This work is actually, conceptually, about my father. The images at the top are images he took of my mother in their old home, and the ones at the bottom are mostly of the medium format camera he used to make those negatives. Make of it what you will, I like to leave things open ended.

A Fresh Start

So I am reacquisitioning my old blog to be a full on art blog. I decided to keep a lot of the old posts because, well, they are interesting. Feel free to rifle through them, and you can hopefully expect more of the same.

You see, I feel like a lot of the content I have been making lately has been lost to the winds in various locations, and that perhaps it might be better to consolidate my efforts in one place. I am currently working on making a new and improved spiffy shiny website, so there is that to look forward to. I need to borrow a camera and do a lot of proper documentation of the masses of work that have built up in my apartment, and of course nail out some graphics and all those other lovely technicalities. But the drive is there. And that's what matters, right?

Anyway, this blog is now the intended companion piece for that site. I make a lot of art, and perhaps not all of it needs to be on a clean structured, look-at-me-I-am-oh-so-fancy portfolio site. The rest of it will probably sink into the archives here, but at least will be accessible for those curious enough to go digging.

And let's get to it!

Links and Things IV

Kevin Van Aelst is a photographer dealing who makes very intersting setups with touches of digital trickery.

Wayne Belger makes deliciously elaborate, themed (and a touch morbid) pinhole cameras which he uses, implementing photography and sculptural processes, to create his complete installations.

Jim Verhulst writes a sobering article about acid attacks on arab women, along with some amazing, but heartbreaking, photographs.

On a more chipper note, recently several animals have been caught getting a little friendly with people's photography gear, including this polar bear and a thieving octopus.

A more technical side of photgraphy is revealed with Aspex Co. asking people to send in samples to be imaged by their scanning electron microscope - at no cost.

Marcus Coates created a fascinating work called "Dawn Chorus" in which he recorded bird whistles, documented the notes, then taught them to people at a pitch and speed that could be reproduced. He then sped the results back up again to create his film. There are some other good works as well if you sift through the site.

The UK government is pushing forward some rather unpleasant laws concerning photographers and usage rights.

Some simply phenomenal animal photography.

Photographic "cheat sheets."

Themes for those using wordpress.

I need to update this blog, but I've been severly bogged down with finals.

I do want to post what I have completed for my final, however. Feedback is much appreciated. So far people have told me that the triptych format is pretty much neccesary to really "get" what is going on, but they disagree on the layout. Any advice?

And This My Friend

War Final Images

Wrapped up shooting for my project images this weekend and got them edited and prettied up. I went ahead and posted them to a set on flickr. Feedback is appreciated.

The final shots.

War Progress Shots

Here are some progress shots from our current project. The one above is the only one I am sure of, the ones below need to be chosen from their respective pairs, but I am particularly indecisive at the moment and will settle on this later. Input is welcome!

War

I've been working hard and literally shooting every day to get photos together for my "war" assignment. At first I had been considering ways to address the theme in a less direct way, but in the end I realized I really just wanted to meet it head on and have been constructing scenes as if war had broken out in contemporary America - suburban Florida even in my case. Throughout history war has been something, for Americans anyway, that is fought elsewhere, in foreign countries. There has not been real fighting for hundreds of years on American soil, and I wanted to address the hypothetical reality of that. I am not focusing so much on the guts and glory aspects of war, the dramatization you see on TV and in movies, but the very real and very human aspects of those left behind, those in the margins and on the sidelines, their lives turned upside down as their cities, their homes, are invaded by enemy forces. In my photos, this unknown enemy is never seen or brought to life except in its obvious presence and effect on those being documented. Their emotions, their frailty or panic or resilience - these are the things I am thinking about, the things I think will provoke a response and make the images wholly relatable.