8/26/07 - Digital darkroom

Back to darkroom...sort of - this is 'digital darkroom' - kind of an oxymoron, but that's what I hear people calling it when they work on their images in photoshop, and turn them into something else entirely.
When I first got into computers, alot of my photo-friends said "well, duuude!! now you are going to melt down your enlarger, aren't you? What the hell would you need it for, now that there's photoshop?".
On the contrary, it all makes me appreciate the special qualities of each media/technique. I now have an even better understanding of what's special about the traditional darkroom.
(Anyone tries to take my enlarger away?...you're in for a fight!)

When I do get into 'digital darkroom'?... a whole lot of other things kick in.
(For one thing, it's color, and all my montage darkroom is B&W ((the color comes later, if it's appropriate)) - Big, BIG change.)

I used to be an advertsing art director, way back when - 1976 thru '81 or '82 - I've always loved good typography, read 'U&lc' magazine.. and I always wanted to try out an airbrush. Never had the money or time to really get into the airbrush...
and forget about buying a Photo-typositor for my 'personal use'!
Thanks to Photoshop? I can now indulge my crazy youthful fantasies, and do both.
The basic background of the image on the right - 'sand dial' - is, of course, the sand, with one clump of dunegrass in the center adding it's shadow to many others, beyond the frame.
This dune grass can do some interesting things to the sand, given the right circumstances - when the wind blows a certain way, and the sand is smooth and even, the grass carves circular 'grooves', like the image in the center above.

Something digital makes possible is collecting images without any additional film or processing costs, once you've got the basics (camera, memory cards, computer&software). So I shoot all kinds of things I might not if I had to deal with film processing, etc.
If I don't like/it doesn't work...? nothing lost.

I've used these 'carved' things in the sand in a few photomontage prints (see one above on the left)... but hadn't yet played w/ the concept in color/digital.
As soon as I did?... sure enough, all those 'art director/type designer/airbrush-artist-wannabe' things kicked in.
The image itself didn't have but a small carved circular area...the shadows of the grass overwhelmed it...like a... sun dial!
That's what set me off on a conceptual tangent - this wasn't a sun dial, but a sand dial.

The gradient white tone that describes the circle was 'airbrush'......
The Roman numerals were of course the type tool, in white... then I duplicated the (white) layer, inverted it, so it became black, & hit that with a 'gaussian' blur. Pushed that a few pixels over & down.
As usual, I played around with the opacity of all these layers - none of them are at 100%.
Ended up with a clock ..that keeps time a different way.

To see the image larger, and to check out all the layers, go to:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_SandDial/index.html
(I've done a screen shot that also shows the Photoshop layers palette.)

Next time round?....... traditional/film stuff, and darkroom...REAL darkroom.

Post #3 - 8/7/07 - It's summer at the California coast..

..and the weather is rather monotonous (but absolutely *nothing* to complain about!) - "..low clouds and fog spreading inland overnite, clearing to near the coast by midday, otherwise, sunny and pleasant - 60's at the coast, to the 90's inland ". What a weather forecast, hunh?........
It's kind of a mantra (VERY repetitive!), but one I've come to appreciate & enjoy - if the coast is foggy?... in San Rafael where I live, it will be relatively clear, cool, and breezy (thanks to the fog burning off).
I am a really 'green' guy (not trying to be, that's just the way it works out) - I don't own a car, haven't for 15 years, I travel by foot & bus - and I can take several connecting routes, and end up in the Marin Headlands, just north of SF ( a nice place to be, and to make pictures), but only on Sunday - that's when SF Muni has a bus that goes there.
(( I definitely know how to pull a credit card out of my wallet, rent a car, fill it (partially!) with the little I need, and disappear to places far, far from SF...but that's another topic entirely, for a future post or 2... or 3...or more.))
If I plan it right?... going to the Headlands is quite enough, "that's the ticket" :-) - the fog spilling over the hills and evaporating has tourists of all nationalities veering into turn-off parking lots, across oncoming traffic - It's that fascinating a sight....

I hang out.. eat a sandwich, smoke a bit... and stick around way longer than any tourist - they pull up, take a few frames, and leave.
I am still there, waiting for the next surge of fog to spill over the hills...
The wait pays off.
That's where it's at: waiting...watching...and being ready.
I always carry a digital camera (Canon Powershot), and a film camera - either a Yashica 6x6 TLR... or Pentax 6x7.
Pixels are cheap, I shoot a lot of them - I save the film for something really worthy, that will 'work' in B&W....(easier said than done, especially when the subject is 'fog'!).
Fog has a personality all it's own - it behaves in ways that never cease to surprise....
In this image, the last of what was a blanket covering the entire Headlands struggles to survive over Pt. Bonita.
I guess a lot of the way fog behaves has to do with the land it is moving over, hunh?

One very nice thing about digital photography is the 'instant gratification' of downloading and checking out the pix while the sweat from the daytrip is still drying off your back - no lab, no drop off/pick-up... just 'download and view' :-)

For over thirty years I've been shooting B&W film, developing and printing it all myself ( I don't need a lab, I AM one!).
I've never collected images the same way in color, til recently, digitally... so it is a rather new experience - I'm still figuring out what I want to do with them.
One thing I do know I like doing... is making panoramas. I don't use any 'stitching' software, I do it all 'manually', so to speak (what's 'manual' about doing it with a computer?...oh, I guess it is my hand on the mouse).
A view of the lingering fog over Pt Bonita, is above.
This image, and a few more, including a panorama of the above view, are visible at:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_MH_Fog_7_07/index.html
(copy & paste into your web browser)

.....next time round?..how 'bout some 'digital darkroom........'?
( yeeee-ah, OK, let's do that :-) )