October was rad. I joined in on a Witchy Weekend (more on that later!), found the most perfect red lipstick, ate all the pomegranate things, and made lots of exciting plans with great friends. I've also got so much film to go through, and I couldn't be happier about it.
This series of portraits was one of my all time favorite things to work on.
While re-watching the Twilight Zone episodes for the millionth time a few years back, I decided to convince some friends to pose as iconic characters. They were great sports about the whole thing, and some even appeared more than once, much like some of the actors on the series. I ended up showing platinum palladium prints of the image in my senior exhibition, though the project was later abandoned for other things.
Before I admit to my lackluster drawing skills, I'd like to say thanks to all the recipients of these postcards for not making fun of me...yet.
Remembering I'm not so great at something helps remind me that I'm pretty okay at other things. For example, the photos of these postcards in process are way prettier than the resulting artwork. However, I still had fun using a different part of my brain, and am not too terribly discouraged from improving my watercolor skills in the future.
For the last couple of years, I've spent the weeks leading up to Halloween wandering around, enjoying the cooler fall weather and photographing all the spooky decorated houses.
There's something especially fun about seeing the houses under bright blue skies in broad daylight.
The roll I tried was Kolor, which causes your images to have a random color gradient. Under and overexposure change the way the effect shows up on the negatives. I'm not usually a fan of crazy effects on film, but this was kind of fun. Next time, I'll definitely plan for overexposure, rather than shooting at 200.
I've also got a roll of 600nm, so I'm excited to see how it differs from the Kolor. Snag some, and a sweet cat calendar, here.
Since we both had rolls of film we needed to finish, Hutch and I headed out to some nearby woods for a bit. I'm still on a bit of a 35mm binge for some reason, and he's been mastering the art of the Sprocket Rocket. One of these days, I'll convince him to let me try it out. Maybe.
Holland is my favorite little Austin photo lab, and not just because they put up with me when I'm impatiently waiting to get my film back.
dots, pt/pd print, 2012
I've always had a hard time with Imogen Cunningham. My first experience with her work was in a book I rescued from the Friends of the Library book sale. Once I got it home and we spent some time together, I couldn't find a single thing about it I liked. I'm not sure I even still own the volume at this point. We crossed paths again in History of Photo, and while I could understand the impact of her existence and the work she created, I still couldn't really identify or find any aesthetic pleasure in it. More recently, we met again and made amends when I fell in love with platinum palladium printing.
This fictional version of Imogen goes by Cymbeline, and she may have finally won me over into the fan club. Part of the narrative follows Cymbeline as she produces several images, including an actual image by Imogen, The Unmade Bed. So, in honor of the first chapter, here are dots and lilies, 3am.
lilies, 3am
Even though the above image was inspired by Cymbeline's talk of death in relation to photographs of cut flowers, I later realized that it bore some resemblance to another Imogene image not mentioned in the book, Amaryllis Flower.
