Darkroom - "Spinning World" - improvising, as usual

Last darkroom day of my year-end 2012 darkroom binge, I did an image that had been haunting me for a while, but it was the sky that wasn't quite right. The basic part was a shot made in Red Rock Canyon, Nevada.
I walked past it on my way in to the canyon, and didn't 'see' it...
but on my way out, it knocked me in the head, like a 2x4 - the reflection of the landscape in the water, that's the key to this one.
I shot an entire roll on this one, on my Pentax 6x7, this is just part of it:

I had done PSD sketches of this one... and had overlaid an image of a wheel, a neg taken at the end of the trip:

 

Funny how whatever i take on any particular trip just kind of 'finds a place' w/ other images, on the same trip. Is it because it is... 'the same trip'?

As usual, when i got down to printing, the sketch was just a starting point. I exposed the landscape first, dodging out the blank sky & some of the distant rockscape, and holding back the water at the bottom a bit. Then I added a much more interesting sky, both top and bottom, and developed one copy of that, I had 2 more sheets left.

So I added the 'wheel', once again exposing top and bottom one at a time.

 

So it's 5 exposures all together. Took less than 2 hours, when i get goin', i really bang it out, not much hesitation.

I was recently featured at a site called 'Analog Advocates', the interview has a good bit to say about my process if you're interested:
http://www.analogadvocates.com/page/bob-bennett

The site itself is pretty interesting, guess alotta people haven't given up on film and it's many possibilities.
http://www.analogadvocates.com/

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file this month, 2 items, one very amusing:

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/10/world/how-to-be-a-photographer/index.html?hpt=hp_bn14

And one, very thought provoking:

The Susan Sontag Guide to Photography in the Age of Digital Culture

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/11/susan_sontag_photography_and_social_networking.html

Happy shooting & printing, to one and all!

'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#!