Titled “The 5 Senses”, the above image is a standout amongst the usual photoshoping trickery that I do because it’s so surreal. I came up with this to illustrate the five senses, and created it in Adobe Photoshop from five separate shots blended together using layer masks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was a witness to the aftermath of a doll masacre, and it was very disturbing…
This shot is another to be used as an image projection in “Bear.” Try to imagine a large scale version of this and the previous shot of the doll projected onto a wall. Oh the creepiness!
In the last four months I’ve attended two plays that have utilized image projection to great affect within their productions. I’m usually not much of a threatre goer so I was pleasantly surprised and fascinated by the use of these special affects. A court scene in “House of Atreus” at UBC back in the fall, included a video projection of a jury that was perfectly timed to interact with the live actors and their movements on stage. More recently, I attended the Electic Company’s production of “Studies in Motion” and was blown away by their extensive use of still imagery projected onto moving screens to enhance the idea of Muybridge’s work in motion studies.
And now to segue into how this relates to me and photography… Last week I took photos to be used as image projections in the production of “Bear”, opening this week on February 2 at UBC. The above doll baby made for a very creepy subject (which I’ve made creepier with a colour treatment), and I’m curious to see how she’ll fit into the rest of the play.
THE THEATRE AT UBC MFA DIRECTING PROGRAM PRESENTS:
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME by Terrence McNally, Directed by Camyar Chai
BEAR by Rebecca Beegle, Directed by Joanna Garfinkel
It’s the lonely science of ventriloquism versus the creation of a perfectly safe suit in this love-and-death chronicle of how one married couple finally achieves their dreams, care of Pyramid Lake, Nevada. JimJim’s fullbody suit and Ruthie’s multiple voices create unique barriers to their loving communion. Though the two are at odds, they have together hired the Dream Ranger to emcee an Awards Ceremony, and along the way they are granted a celebrity cameo in the form of a Canadian bear-proof suit-maker.
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February 2 – 4, 2006 – 7:30 pm
DOROTHY SOMERSET STUDIOHUT M-18, 6361 University Boulevard
DOUBLE BILL $5 TICKETS: 604.822.2678
INFO: www.theatre.ubc.ca
I have the first roll of film back from the “Snap Crackle & Pop” trash cam I bought at Value Village a few weeks ago and I’m very happy with the results.
The film I used was Fujicolour Superia X-tra 800 ISO, shot under very sunny lighting conditions. I decided to approach it the same way I would shooting with the Holga, keeping in mind the exposure limitations of having a shutter speed around 1/60 or 1/100.
In a follow up to the entry about Utata weekend projects from the other day, “Beam Me Up” has been launched over at Utata.org . You can check it out here. There are a few photos of interesting experiments with long exposures using flashlights included, and the use of these as a light source in general gives me a few ideas…