Category: Portraits

Elemental

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To my surprise, over the course of the past year self portraiture has become part of my artistic practice. What began as a very tentative and conservative foray into taking pictures of myself is now an endlessly creative outlet for exploring ideas and personal expression.

My most recent foray into self portraiture builds upon a series of shots taken in the summer called “Burning” where I created the illusion of fire by playing around with sari fabric and in-camera blur. I’ve since decided to turn this into a larger series exploring the four elements, with water as the natural succession to fire.

Burning

The idea for the water images was inspired by the underwater portraits of Howard Schatz.I specifically had in mind his beautifully published book “Waterdance” which is now out of print but I was lucky enough to come across in a used bookstore. With “Floating” I sought to simulate the murkiness and lighting quality of underwater using textured fabric in front of the lens and a wavy lighting pattern falling on the black background.

Swimming to the surface Floating in darkness

I am fairly happy with the results from this shoot, but feel they could be stonger with a further exploration on the same theme. Stay tuned for the next attempt.

Homage

Man Ray Tribute

When deciding upon a photographer to pay homage for last weekend’s Utata project I chose Man Ray. Members were asked to produce a photo that was a direct imitation of one made by a master photographer or one which was made to copy the style of a particular photographer. I selected the above image for a photoshop treatment to emulate the solarization technique Ray used in some of his work, an effect which is normally created in the darkroom. Solarization or “sabattier” involves taking a partially developed paper print and fogging it with light before developing is complete, yielding an effect in which some areas are positive and others negative.

The Utata Pays Homage project is worth checking out for lots of information on a wide range of photographers, from historical to current, and the members creative interpretations of their work.

2005 pictoral review…

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In honour of New Years day, I’m presenting some of the photographic “Year 2005 in Review” slide shows for your viewing pleasure.

Reuters – 2005 Pictures of the Year.

MSNBC – Editors and Readers Choice.

CBC – Faces of 2005.

CBC – Canada The Year in Photos.

Looking back through my own photos from the past year, I realize it’s difficult to choose just a few that I feel are the “best of” or that sum up the year for me. It’s been a very productive and inspired year artistically, thanks to the photo community at Flickr and to my local group of Flickr friends in Vandigicam. I’ve decided to select some of my favorite photos from a few of the series I worked on this past year:

In 2005 I was inspired to explore self portraiture in a way I never have before, and in the process I think I learned a lot more about photographing other people.

Veiled Listening to her heart Yuuki's perch

I took an endless amount of portraits of the people around me,

Zoe Celia Kate

and generally photographed the heck out of the year….

Let the sun shine Tiny boats

Expired film

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I really enjoy meeting other photographers because of the unexpected influences their style and techniques can bring to my own photography. Take for example the work of my friend Joanna and her use of cross processed expired slide film, which she mostly shoots with for the sake of its lower price and tendancy towards weird colouration. It was not something I would have thought to try without her influence.

This shot of mine was taken with expired Seattlechrome slide film. I’m not sure of the age of the roll but I can tell the film wasn’t stored properly at a stable temperature because of the “fogging” through the highlight areas. The colour shift is very interesting and brings a certain nostalgia to the shot that reminds me of family photographs from the seventies.


Part of the challenge of shooting with this kind of film is the unpredictablity of the results. It all depends on how the film was stored, its age, accuracy of exposure, and the reaction of the film when cross processed.

These three portraits were taken with a roll of Fujichrome 100 ISO that expired in 1993 that I picked up at a camera show. The most interesting colour shift was in the shot on the left because the subject was actually wearing a brown shirt and vest, not blue. Really old expired film can be tricky to find, but I would recommend camera shows and ebay as places to start, and most local photo supply stores tend to have a few rolls they’d be happy to get off their hands for a cheaper price. A good way to “age” newly expired film is through dramatic temperature change, say by experimenting with leaving it on the heater. I’d suggest doing this under controlled conditions, and not just leaving it there indefinately. Let me know if it works!