All these years I found such an irreplaceable joy in photographing and printing in the darkroom. Developing film was such a wondrous moment and now I am finding this same feeling when revealing the images, when I have something to reveal, from these leaves. Its amazing. The tactile ability to touch, feel the sun beating on me as I set up and the feeling of the fruits, veggies, flowers in my hand or their dried remnants and change of color and shape. I am simply in amazement and wonder, this process has been such a self reflection of me and my life and it is liberating.
Alright so now the good stuff.... Here are some images of results. I wasnt sure I was going to get anything from this. I saw the condensation really take over and maybe I dont have my set up right for this type of work yet but I thought having some space and air to breathe helped the plants. So I cut up the veggies that were produced and the leaves that coincided with those particular vegetables and placed them on top of themselves basically. Now these veggies were fresh there for there was water in them still.....I should try a dried out veggie for this practice and see what it yields. I left it outside overnight for two nights and about two days. I really have to say I didnt expect much because of this type of natural reaction to the sun, moisture, etc. I figured the results would be minimal and that the sun in time would be able to wrap around what it was I was photographing and make for a poor image. What I found was different. Very organic and soft images of their own "self" on "themselves". This was beautiful to me. The squash did not work as well but I have left it outside still for it may need some more time.
Check them out......So to clarify it is a cucumber and pepper leaf. The pepper was obviously small and thin slice so it did not yield much but the cucumber really has a wonderful sense of light and shape in it.
So now I thought.....what about using the paper and then printing a leaf on top of it and then putting a piece of that vegetable on its own leaf..... So you see here down below the idea of the kohlrabi on its leaf on an anthotype coated paper with wine and beet. I still have some emulsions but have run out of watercolor paper and will be picking some up this weekend because Ill need to coat again. I just received my book on Anthotypes in the mail yesterday and was very excited to see all the test of flowers and fruits and vegetables that were experimented with and their remarks and some of their finding I found to be the same which makes me feel like Im on track. I will keep experimenting. The left of the kohlrabi you see red cabbage on two coated pieces of paper different sheets of paper and emulsions. I am trying to see what kind of images this will yield on the paper with the sun passing through. It looks like some good sun today so I am hoping to leave these out for the next couple days and get some quick results.
Currently still building on the camera obscura and developing ideas on those levels. I have been emailing with Caleb Charland and getting ready for our next meet and it is clear that I should stick with this current process right now and not venture off too much into what the leaf can produce and all the other ideas that have come filtering through my mind. I should master this skill I am embarking on right now and should I need to I can revisit these ideas at a later time because I am starting to get too involved as I have done with my work in the past and moving away from this simple beauty I have discovered. I need to keep it simple and not loose my sight. This is a challenge for me not to overly examine or create a "stronger" more in depth meaning towards it all.
Till next time....
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