I have put off adding posts to this blog site since I created my
website, that includes a blog. Interesting enough, I continue to get
more visitors here than I do there. So it seems only fitting I add some
of the new work I've been doing since I last posted.
As
noted in an earlier post I have an Epson 1430 printer now, used only to
print on transparency film to make negatives. Nothing else touches that
printer. It's the best printer I ever used and I intend on protecting
it as long as I can. I've have arrived at a preparatory process for the
color digital negatives I've been using to make the prints. I still use
my Canon 20D, now almost twenty years old. In digital cameras, that's a
grandpa camera.
I have worked on more gum over
palladium prints over the past few months and will post some of them in
later posts. For now the print series I'm working on now are images I
brought back from a recent trip to Mexico, staying in Merida and
Progreso, Yucatan. It has been a long time since I did any street
shooting, that is photographing people without their knowledge, or
consent. The point being not to have them know I was even taking photos.
I keep it within the guidelines of "public" photography whereupon there
is either more than one person in the shot, or, the shot is done such
that the person can't be recognized or known.
I have to
say I did enjoy that work, which was quite easy in that setting as the
people there are very casual and seriously friendly. In Progreso, the
pace is very laid back and casual. A cruise ship docks at the end of
their four mile long gery hefty concrete peer, busing in the tourista to
visit the town for the day then scurrying back before 5pm, when the
locals begin to gather all along the Malecon for strolling or playing on
the beach with kids. The entire malecon is designed for the local
families to use. Finding material to photograph wasn't so difficult.
There
is a razor thin line between an image that could be called "Art", and a
tourist's snap. I spend a good deal of time staring at any image I
consider worthy of printing, going through several the conditions that
might make an image worthy of printing as one's artwork. A strong image
being one such element, and it should be such that the viewer shouldn't
have to ask why they are looking at the image. I have attempted to
capture people in their natural environment, in that moment when they
are engaged as part of that environment. That golden moment when all the
elements come together just right. That's the task for capturing the
image. The second half of that is printing the image such that it
captures the mood, the emotional connection I had pre-visualized, and
intended, so that hopefully the viewer will have the same emotional
connection to the image. It will be up to the viewer to decide if I was
successful.
These prints are all being processed the
same. Only the negative image is altered by adding densities to the
original b&w image. These prints are printed on Revere Platinum
paper, developed in sodium acetate developer then toned in palladium
toner for ten minutes, thus rendering them as true palladium prints, or
the 'poor man's palladium' print. There are thousands of those still
around from the early 20th century.
Palladium toned Kallitype ~ Unique
"The Gringo's View" ~ 11"x14"
Progreso, Yucatan
