Sunday, September 15, 2013

'Combustion' - more darkroom!

Don't know how the idea for this one dropped in to my head, just thankful that it did.
I wake up, too often, at 1AM... what else can I say? I've been doing a lot of small photoshop sketches lately, to try out ideas before pouring out the dektol... but for this one?...amongst the 480 MB's of sketches on my HD, i have no sketch of this one, nothing, nada, zilch. Hey, guess what? The best software is between your ears.



At the bottom, a sandwich of 3 negs: a campfire shot in Joshua Tree NP many years ago, a shaft of light (reflections off water, thru a decaying building on the beach, i used a 'star cross filter') ...and a few clouds - that's the first exposure, dodged out to 'zero' about 2/3rds of the way up.

At the top, another 'sandwich':
A huge tree i shot at Jack London historical park, in northern Ca. ... sandwiched with a few very old lith negs of birds... and pseudo 'stars', just a few holes punched in a black card, shot w/ a star cross filter.
"Sandwiches" are VERY difficult to deal with, you are stuck with the size of what you shot.
When they work? they scream! when they don't, they sink like a stone.
But if i get 1 'scream' for every 2 'sinking stones'...?
That's a pretty good result, i'll take it.

The other three 'rays of light' that compose the 'star-cross' thing in the tree are done manually, handcolored.
It's pretty easy actually: cut a long strip/hole out of tracing paper that's translucent (= you can still see the image below, faintly) and position it *carefully* over the print, tape it down so it stays put. Hand-color in some white... that's it, it's done.
As usual, larger images on a page at my website:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2013/Combustion/index.html

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file this month?
Sand! This is the 'Beach Blog' isn't it? OK, yeah, i thought so.

http://geology.com/stories/13/sand/

And if you think film is dead? Got news for ya:

http://petapixel.com/2013/08/29/ilford-opens-up-photo-lab-in-california-will-process-your-film-by-mail/?goback=.gde_2406022_member_269696710#!