On taking risks, making mistakes?.....

Next time you go out on a limb?... take a saw along! Use it...... ( he-he!)

A recent article in the New Yorker magazine reminded me of why I like traditional darkroom montage, and even though digital is marvelous, it can't replace those three trays, and a wash.
The article was about the Grateful Dead, it's very long, it traces the emergence of the band and how it advanced live performance, sound technology, and the underground market for concert tapes... and the huge library of live recordings that exist.
The thing I found relevant to my work is the improvisation, the risk taking they did.
Just when you thought they were about to fall apart, they turned a corner and came together.
And vice versa, just when you thought they couldn't take you any higher, they came undone.

Grateful Dead article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_paumgarten

It's long read, well worth your time.

Same is true in my darkroom - sometimes (most of the time actually) a print will emerge in the dektol that i didn't quite expect, and could only partially plan in advance.

The most memorable (from my point of view) image is what seems to be the one everyone likes the best - 'Edge of Town'.

All the negs were made on the same 2 week road trip: The abandoned building on the left:

...the silhouette of the Indian ruin at the top/right, a desert landscape at the bottom right... and the one that tied it all together, just a simple shot of some high desert clouds.
I started with three sheets exposing the first three negs pretty much identically, developed one to see how it was shaping up. I knew i had an empty area that turned out to be larger than i thought.

Rummaging thru proof sheets, i came upon this sky:

I exposed it on #2 sheet.
#2 told me that the neg was right, my exposure was not.

I am now at the baseball equivalent of '3 balls, 2 strikes'....
I've got one more sheet left, if this doesn't work, it'll all be for naught.
I managed to hit the next one out of the park. :-)

On to the present/ recent work........
I did a 2 day darkroom session a few months ago, that sharpened the focus on 'risk, failure, and success'... and the relationship between them.
First print was a continuation of a previous thread - a desert landscape, with 'something else' burned in to the sky.
Here's the 'previous/thread' image:

And the new print:

Not much risk....'Nice, but nothing new'. I am feeling like maybe i am repeating myself?... which is not neccessarily a bad thing, but still i am a bit disappointed.

The second one, i took a risk, i had done a sketch:

But at the last moment substituted a different 'cave/hole' on the right. It was not a nice sharp neg, there was motion blur, and though i thought it would work, it didn't hang together.

Trying to add a figure/silhouette made things worse.

(After looking at it for a while, i realized what it needed... and i will be doing this one again, soon. Perhaps as a 'hybrid' - the first part being a darkroom print which is then scanned and then added to digitally -  a new way to work, for sure, this opens up new doors.)

The third print blew open new bigger doors that I am still pondering!

Here's the P'shop sketch:

 

It is a montage of 2 sandwiches:

At the bottom, a campfire shot in Joshua Tree many years ago, and a shaft of light inside an old building with a starcross filter, and a thin neg of some clouds.

The top is a 3 way sandwich of: a huge old oak tree at Jack London Historical park in northern CA,  some artificial 'stars' (just a big black card w/ some holes punched in it, a light behind it, shot thru a star- cross filter) and a lith neg of some birds in flight.

Two exposures, 3 negs each.

Wow!

I added a bit more 'starcross' beams coming thru the tree w/ handcoloring, and digitally. There ain't much difference between them.

This one definitely gives me a whole new way to work, but it's harder because I can't change the size or anything else about a negative, it is what it is. I think the montages will be much 'richer', and a real challenge to work out.... but i am up for it!

Larger images as always:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2012/RisksMistakesVictories/index.html

 My 'photoshop sketch book' is gettin' pretty fat, the Xmas/year end vacation I'll be sloppin' some dektol around, so stop in around mid-January.
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The whatever catches my eye file this month includes a recommendation to add this blog on your bookmarks, 'behold' at slatemagazine.com:


Then and Now Come Together at the Grand Canyon
By Alyssa Coppelman

Photo © Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe

Posted Friday, Nov. 30, 2012

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2012/11/30/ mark_klett_and_byron_wolfe_grand_canyon_images_then_and_now_photos.html

and:

Dissecting Photographic Specimens With Michael Mapes
By Christopher Jobson

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2012/11/22/michael_mapes_breaking_down_photography_one_image_at_a_time.html

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November 12, 2012
A Question of Color — Answered
By JOEL MEYEROWITZ
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/a-question-of-color-%E2%80%94-answered/?hp
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Rolling blue waves hit the Antarctic coastline
These brilliant blue beauties, which look like tidal waves frozen at their highest point, were captured by French astrophysicist (and part-time photographer) Tony Travouillon as he travelled across Antarctica.
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/antarctic-waves-slideshow/antarctic-waves-photo-1126234579.html

Have yourself a very merry 'christ-moose'!!!!!!!

Symmetry gallery - how a 'one off' turned into a whole new thing.

Some somewhat 'wild and and crazy' advice:
One of the best things about photoshop or any kind of image making is you can come up w/ an image ( that might turn into a 'theme')... and then 'kick the can down the road'.
Save whatever half baked thought you had, come back to it later and bake it a little more. This is something you should try as often as possible, what you do just might blossom into something new, keep doing a bit of work on an image then.. keep kicking the can down the road! ... and adding adjusting something.
It applies to darkroom work also.

Almost 20 years ago, i printed this image:

It seemed like a 'one off'/one of a kind' at the time.

I have always liked the circular grooves in the sand that a few blades of grass can carve, blown by the wind, it seems to remind me of a clock. Every time i see this, i shoot a few pix, whether it's film or pixels.

I've always liked mandalas, for over 40 years - fascinating stuff.
6 or 7 years ago I did a digital image inspired by the darkroom print above that was sort of symmetrical, sort of mandala-ish, and i turned it into something else, still thinking of it as 'one off'. My old 'art director' muscles kicked in, loving typography, i created the roman numeral numbers on the 'clock'. The shadows work like a sundial, casting themselves onto the hour.

The idea of symmetry like this kept popping up, in numerous images, impossible to ignore.
Then, when my dad died a few years ago, my step mom sent me a few things of his that she thought i should have. The shirts were nice, he was about my size, he had good taste.
But the best thing.... was this pocket watch!

That's how people did it, a long time ago, it wasn't strapped on your wrist.
So i shot some pix of it, and scanned it too.
Put them all into this blender called a 'brain'......
and it became:

I guess I have to call it a 'Palm clock', I can't think of anything better.

The idea of symmetry really kicked in at this point.


I shot a really nice petro-glyph in Nevada 4 years ago:

...and then duplicated it 3 times, spun them 90 degrees each, added a scan of a cheapo compass i had, added some landscapes, and came up w/ this:

How did i get from the beginning to this end? (but it is NOT an end, make no mistake about it, it will continue!).....I have no idea.

Just keep... "kickin' the can down the road"! and workin' on something!


Larger images, as always, at a page on my site, including a few on this theme not included above, and some small PSD files of a few images for your edification:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2012/Symmetry/index.html
 
This months 'whatever catches my eye' file?

Here's a couple that relate to this month's symmetry topic:

Miniature Worlds Digitally Assembled From Hundreds of Photographs by Catherine Nelson
By Christopher Jobson
Posted Friday, Oct. 26, 2012, at 7:00 AM ET



http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2012/10/26/catherine_nelson_s_miniature_world_photography.html

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Here'a site worth bookmarking:

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/

...and a good article, also on topic for this post:
The Geometric Food Art of Sakir Gökçebag

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/category/photography/
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Last post, I included a link to a guy who applied this technique to San Francisco, using shots taken after the earthquake in 1906, and blending them w/ present day SF.
Now someone has applied this to Europe.

Photo montage shows Europe's past blending with present
Europe's war-torn past is never all that far from the present. This becomes eerily clear in "Ghosts of History," a series of haunting photographs that overlay images from France during World War II with present-day pictures of the same locations.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ghosts-of-history-slideshow/

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Why Polaroid Was the Apple of Its Time
By Geeta Daya

"It’s easy to forget now, but instant camera maker Polaroid once matched the mythos — and ubiquity — of Apple. Much like Steve Jobs, founder Edwin Land was single-minded in his determination to create unique products with a strong affinity for design. For Jobs, Land was an all-time hero.

In the new book Instant: The Story of Polaroid, New York senior editor Christopher Bonanos traces the dramatic rise and near-collapse of one of America’s most iconic companies."

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/instant-the-story-of-polaroid/

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/great_polaroid_snapshots_the_history_of_polaroid_cameras_.html
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It's still called the Beach Blog isn't it?
OK time for one last link... to the ocean...
Friday, September 28, 2012 10:06am PDT
Sailors capture spectacular footage of rare dolphin super pod encounter
By: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/35322/sailors+capture+spectacular+footage+of+rare+dolphin+super+pod+encounter/