Wednesday, March 12, 2008

#5 of 5 - Darkroom Binge



Hole in the Sky

This was the last print of the 4 day binge, after the previous print ('Into shadows'). It was another total 'wing it' effort. It is actually 2 skies blended together, one on the left, the other on the right. Between the two of them, two opposing arcs, they make a 'hole' in the sky. The one on the left was taken from the rooftop deck at a previous apt. in S.F. about 12 or 13 years ago, the one on the right was taken at Joshua Tree in 2003, which explains why I stumbled upon it - the previous print had managed to make the 'Joshua Tree/Mojave Reserve' 2003 contact sheets drift to the top of the pile.

I exposed 4 sheets with first (left side) image, then did one with the sky on the right side, and developed that.
Which looked good, just by itself - Just this big...'hole in the sky', nothing else added.
(At first glance, it is not even a montage - it's just another sky, unless you have a refined eye for skies, which would clue you that this is not a natural occurence.)

But wherever there's a hole of some sort, something may want to crawl into it...
Like...uh...maybe one of those small lizards? (4-5 inches long), that I've seen everywhere from the Mojave desert, to the parking lot at my apt. complex.
As soon as you look at them the wrong way, or move a bit, they sense it, and are gone, gone, gone, faster than you can say 'holy shit!'.
A perfect candidate to 'disappear' into this sky, so that's what I added.
It's moderately successful I think, but nothing that will make the phone ring off the hook with frantic calls from photo gallery directors.

Both images larger at:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/Beachblog_DkRmXmas/5_HoleInTheSky.html

(One thing I have learned from past efforts is that what I might think now, rather immediately after printing it, might change a lot in the future - I might look at it again in six months, and see something going on that I hadn't noticed before.......... so I never shred anything, and put it all up on my website for anyone to see.)

So....... that was the end of this binge - the developer was the color of very strong coffee, I'd spent 4 days working.. and it was time for some 'beach'.

I've added all the images the my 'Darkroom 2007' page at bobbennettphoto.net - I figure there are a few people out there reading this w/ some regularity, 'cause my profile has been viewed 100+ times - so you tell me, rate 'em, from:

'5 - whoa! awesome, dude!'
to:
'1 - give up! just drink the damn developer and die, will ya?'

Say whatever you want to - even if you write 'drink the damn developer and die', don't expect me to do that...it's just a figure of speech.

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/2007/index.html

The 5 images are:

Decay Cab
Into shadows
Lighthouse
Hole in the sky
The Powers that be