Soooo A lot is going on this week. I have a meeting with my mentor on Tuesday September 10th and then there is an opening on Wednesday 11th at NHIA and Thursday 12th at Panopticon which I will attempt to attend both. The new school year has started and I am getting adjusted to my old schedule and routine. I expect next Saturday to be my next lab day and it will be good to see where my discussions go this week to help guide that lab day. Here are some photographs from my camping trip.

Vacation

Ill be away for the weekend on a camping trip to Baxter State Park in Maine. Very excited! I will not be bake to produce anything new but may have one post later tonight if my exposures are working properly. Then school starts and ill be handling the students so it may be a little before I post again.........

These are the two anthotypes that i exposed earlier yesterday. These were two sheets of beet emulsion with vegetables that were wet and weathered from outside on the paper to exposed. The paper was not dried before set for exposure. This is what gives it more texture. Next week I am going to attempt to create my own emulsion by mixing beets with berries and other vegetables to get a color and texture that is most desirable for me and really narrow down which paper I enjoyed working with the most. I will then set out exposures that will follow this same idea of "wet" exposures. Should be interesting.

Check these images out:

Paper Tests

Ok so I showed you some images this morning of dipping sheets of paper into a beet emulsion and I was testing not having them dry before printing on them. With a slightly overcast day  and about six hours exposure I received these images. Try to capture the texture in them, its really interesting.

Four sheets of paper were dipped, these papers were only dipped once and then a slice of an old potato was laid on them like the picture you saw in this mornings post.

So here we have....

Epson Enhanced Matte

Epson DuraBrite Glossy Photo Paper

Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper

Ilford Galerie Multipurpose Paper

Important to note that these images were not adjusted at all. These are their true colors. It will be interesting to see the difference between the double dipped papers and the ones that are dried and I will expose tomorrow. I will assume they will most likely need more time because the material will not be wet and absorbing the emulsion quicker. 

Results

Look at these.

So I was playing with the levels and curves to emphasize the detail, textures and colors in each Anthotype that is present just not as saturated. Even though I say that they have been "altered" I don't know think that holds completely true. The colors and textures that are on these images are amazing....digitally or not.
here are some examples:
This is a beet emulsion that had a deteriorating kale bunch on top of it and went through a rain storm which made the emulsion pool at the bottom...interesting...

This is a beet emulsion with an onion slice at the top and cucumbers in the middle with c kohlrabi slice at the bottom. Very rice colors. 

This is a red cabbage emulsion with slices of red cabbage on top. The cabbage definitely absorbed some of the emulsion and was left overnight for about two nights and days and this reaction was made in the color. Its absolutely beautiful!

This is a red cabbage with onion strings, egg shells and some leaves on it. 

This is a swiss chard leaf on a swiss chard emulsion and the red stem of the leaf left a mark while exposing which is really intriguing. 

A swiss shard leaf on a fennel emulsion.......

Some weeds on a wine emulsion...

This is a wine emulsion with a house plant leaf on it....both of them are the same. 

Then I started playing with other ideas like coating a paper with grapes and then pressing other berries onto the paper to see what that gave me.... This is what I got. You can see where the blueberries dried up and fell off and some of them stuck with their own juices. This has been out to dry for days and it still is sticky and has juices all over it so I had to scan this on a piece of glass on the flatbed. The juices obviously ran and I think I will do another scan and take the fruit remaining off and see what is underneath. 

This is a red cabbage emulsion with about half a red cabbage left to expose on the paper. This is a dense piece. The colors are amazing and there is little to no correction or saturation here in this image. This is really amazing. I love what happened here. The cabbage absorbed the emulsion through getting wet during condensation process and being left overnight a couple times. Its fascinating that some of the details were able to penetrate through the large bulk of the vegetables onto the paper. I am interested in this.....and the thought of just allowing the produce to "die" on itself and leave a trace is really inviting to me in this process as well. 

I tried the last cucumber print and what it gave me was amazing but I wanted to see if I could keep the leaf flat and so I put the leaf under glass here and then the cucumbers on the glass. There were three in a triangle and you can see their marks where the darker green it. Didnt do what I was hoping but it was still good to try. 

This is three kale leaves that I exposed their own roots on. This was difficult because I couldn't get the roots to lay flat on the leaves. There was too thin roots not directly in contact with the leaf and the sun would just wrap around them. I will try this process again though. You can see in the leaves that the bottom where they all connect there is a darker section and that is where the "stump" of the root rested, The rest of them didn't really keep a trace of the root just exposed a little differently and this is the final product. It is definitely a process to try again and play with it. While doing this I grew a connection with the roots themselves. So I decided to scan them as well. Again its hard to scan something that has so much bulk to it but this is the image I made of it. I am curious now if there may be a connection forming here between the digital world of this work and the life and death of this work. Is there a thought of creating a diptych.... Im not sure.  

Exposing and Scanning

ALright so I have had these vegetables outside for some times now and there is some wear to them.....They are starting to deteriorate naturally and be eating by insects. I liked this. I was interested in coating the paper and exposing it before it was dry like I have previously stated and so I did. Both sheets of paper with coated with a brush and then placed right outside, still wet, and these vegetables and leaves placed on top. What I am trying to get are the marks that these materials will make when they absorb the emulsion into themselves. I was surprised to see the change in the red cabbage when I exposed it and how the mass of half a cabbage took to the paper after going through some weather changes. The colors were extraordinary. This is what I am trying to achieve here, like said in an earlier post, it might just be about color right now too and how do I play and get results that are intriguing. You can see in these images that they are already absorbing the emulsions so we should see what we get!

This bottom image is a set of four different papers that are digital papers that were dipped into a beet emulsion. I again curious on how the material absorbs the emulsion when it is not dry before exposing. This is a potato that had passed its time and I started to think about the waste of the fruits and veggies that some people may have....or even that I have. How much do I throw out or allow to waste/rot in my fridge because I didnt find the time to prepare them or eat them? This idea also coincides with life and death as well. Like rotten milk? How does curdled cream look on a surface such as this and how will it react to  the materials? So Im think I may play with this idea slightly..... See what comes of it. I also have two other sets of these sheets of paper, one is going to be double dipped and the other once and both dried before exposing. I will post later because I spent all morning scanning about ten anthotypes I produced the other day and am SUPER excited to bring them into the good old Photoshop and see what comes of them. Stay tuned. 

Ideas....thoughts

So I have had a great day! Got into my classroom and prepared for school to start again which will be interesting to see how I can balance life, art, and teaching. Ill think about that more in two weeks. :)

I met with Bev Conway who was a great inspiration to me today. Her recent work is using a process that I admire and am currently in the process of gaining a greater understanding for it as well. Things that came up in out couple hour conversation with her:

Maybe it is about color?
What about the reactions that two materials make while exposing?
Is it about the mark making?
What am I trying to make?
Maybe I do need to work in a mixed media.....
What is important to me?
It is ok that its not an emulsion made of the material being photographed.
Im in a good place.... i think.... :)

Our conversation was strong and long lasting and if I had not had prior plans then it probably would of gone on for some more time. It will happen again Im sure. One thing that stuck with me about this meeting was maturity. This is true and this is why I am here. Events in life have brought me to this place and my maturity has pushed me here to pursue this crazy idea called art.

Things I am going to try:

immersing the paper in the emulsion of choice
composing an image using flowers from my garden
keeping it simple and studying mark making.
embracing the digital side of this process more and being a little more open to scanning my images and looking at them in photoshop.
placing veggies onto emulsion even when its not dry and exposing
coating digital papers to see what kind yields a strong color.
Moving away from the consistent use of the leaves on paper but what do objects do? what if i used something that was completely opposite and not as delicate as a leaf?
When using vegetation can I just throw it and let it fall on the paper? Is composing it going to be too contrived?

Found these artists today, check them out here:

http://www.alchemy-studio.net

James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith

Had some really great things happen today in my exposures and can not wait to let them dry and scan them tomorrow. I will post pictures for sure. 

Another Great Day for Exposures.

So here is my current darkroom. I love it! I am feeling a real connection with my daily life of eating, exercising, getting outside and my photography. Last night was a great finding for me and I hope that I can push that further. What Im most interested in right now is the root and leaf exposure that I am doing with the kale in this bottom image. I have some of the kale roots exposing on the its own leaves, This kale had been attacked by pests in my garden and I had to just let it go because they had got the best of the kale leaves so what is supposed to be lush green leaves are deteriorated and chewed. So I have composed them on the best emulsion I have exposing right now which is the beets. I am really anxious to see what comes of it. I have some fennel, grapes, red cabbage and beets just put out today. Some just have leaves to see if they make an impression and some have egg shells and berries pressed into the paper to see what kind of images it yields. The sun is hot and bright today with what looks like a clear one so hopefully Ill have results by the end of the day when I get out of my night shift at work. I am really excited to scan these now and see what comes of them. I am also re-photographing the cucumbers on their leaves and putting a glass in between to see if it changes how the leaf curled and the cucumbers stuck to it. This process will be interesting during all four seasons.........

Before work I will be taking the hosta leaf out of its exposure. I really have my fingers crossed there! 

Scans

This has been a productive day for me. I went to the store and re organized my entire digital darkroom or should I say office....you know the feeling you cant do anything because you are unorganized. Well that has changed. I am in a much better place with all kinds of energy although after writing this post I probably will retire due to pure exhaustion. I might be able to get a little reading in.....we'll see.

Alright so after organizing and having all my exposures outside exposing currently, I felt good and wanted to re-visit some prints I had already made. So I scanned everything, for the most part. 

I have two mini series here. One is of leaf printing, more so separated into two sections. Some with organic prints of their own produce on the leaf. So a slice of cucumber on the cucumber leaf. I really like these....

                                      

The next set are the three leaves I printed on and had some success from negatives. They are interesting and I do have to admit to enjoying the scans. It makes them clean and the colors are so unified that it is far more attractive in some ways.....

Now there is a set of four anthotypes that I have done throughout this time experimenting. I decided I was going to scan them tonight and see what I got out of "color correcting" them in Photoshop. To my surprise, although I did expect something, they emphasized the emulsion and the silhouettes that I got on these photograms became far more beautiful than they were before. I am not very intrigued by this process and anticipate doing more. This was a good couple hours in front of the computer exiting and scanning these images. My original goal was not to take it into a digital world but it really helps to display the elegance that is represented in these images.

 raspberries

red cabbage

 grapes

Cant wait till tomorrow I have some sweet looking paper downstairs in my darkroom drying waiting to be exposed. 

Busy Day.....

Here are some experiments that have also been put together today. I coated some more paper with beet, swiss chard, grapes and fennel emulsions today and will be putting another coat on before bed so they are ready for the morning. I am testing a swiss chard leaf in both ways to see how it prints on an anthotype and how a negative may print on the chard. I have found it is all about the way the leaf turns. For instance tree leaves are too "green" with chlorophyll I believe, is too strong of a pigment to change and there for create the difference in color between the leaf and the images being pressed on the leaf. 

Here is a couple kale leaves printing their own roots on themselves. We shall see what this yields. Caleb Charland and I talked about this process when we met and it was something worth trying. Not sure if the print will be anything worthy but the experiment will be worth the shot. Since the kale leave was so good at exposing itll be interesting what it shows after a couple days but I dont think Ill have much luck looking for leaves and their roots such as this. I have a garden and thats the only reason I have this root right now.......

So now I am experimenting with the vegetable on its own matter for emulsion. I coated this paper the other day and I will be putting a plexi over this to keep the singles down to the paper. I also put a large chunk of the red cabbage on the bottom right to see what kind of light may be able to get through and it might be that I leave that portion of the print there for a while to expose. Not sure if the res cabbage is too dense either..... well see.


This is a previous test of a piece of red cabbage on a coated paper but this paper was coated a while ago and was with wine I believe. You can see its organic shape but its not a strong print and it probably could of used a couple more days but it have me something to work with.

This is what happened to the kohlrabi that I exposed. The ring is fascinating but the vegetable itself is a little transparent and so the sin over time really just went through and exposed the center of the vegetable, not like the cucumber. But the leaf is a good leaf to print on and I will use it again.....I wish I could scan my cucumber print but I am going to have to do it once and once only because it will break int he scanner so I am a little hesitant on doing so but I will in order to make prints of these leaves. And even though the idea of printing themselves on each other in interesting maybe its not necessary. Maybe if I find a strong emulsion like beets I can continue with the rest of the ideas just with a beet emulsion. I will be putting another kohlrabi leaf outside today to print. I am trying to set everything up on my porch so that I can potentially throw a tarp over it if it should rain to protect the work but it seems like I have a good week ahead of me and should not have a problem.


Bought some materials today at the store to help organize my digital darkroom and studio. I also bought a large board to hopefully put together another camera obscura that is larger and capable of a larger exposure.....its the building that gets in the way right now because it takes me a little while to figure things out.

Camera Obscura

So here it is. I used a plastic bag from an old paper box and a sheet of cardboard to make a holder for the lens. Four sticks evenly broke are used to hold the cardboard up. A hosta leaf, the best one I have found for exposing besides the kale leaf, is underneath. I have done an experiment this time by putting a Baggie of water on the stem of the leaf. Ill leave this for a couple days. Looks like weather is on my side this week so hopefully a couple days will be good. Ill be making another obscura with a kale leaf after I go to the grocery store. Exciting and I hope it works! Also made some more emulsions today and will be coating those and maybe playing with adding a substance that may make the emulsion a little more dense and thicker for coating. Stay tuned! Meanwhile today I want to go photograph some film so ill be taking the camera out. :) want to work with some color again.