Salt and Storms
In my last blog I mentioned that I was working on images around the house that were unique to me/it/the house/etc… I made many exposures on that topic and made some proof prints from it, but did not turn out anything that I was satisfied with. It was lacking something that I couldn’t put a name on. Some images seemed to work, while others not so much... What was I missing?
A short time later I went on a brief binge of watching Sally Mann videos on Youtube. If you haven’t seen or heard of Sally Mann, then I recommend this video in particular. I watched many videos on her speaking, but one thing stood out and that was that I needed to have my photographs connect with human elements in some way. They were too sterile and I needed to have an essence to connect it with the emotions. This was a break through! Thank you Sally!!
This might have been the breakthrough I needed to start making better photographs. However, something unexpected happened which completely turned my attention to a new area of focus… Recently, here in San Francisco at least, we have been getting unusually strong weather. So much so that the infrastructure and even nature itself is having difficulty handling the harsher weather. Surely, I am not the only person here to be witnessing the power of the forces of nature. The effects of these storms can be seen all around, you just have to look deeply…
Now, when I look around I can see evidence of the history of powerful storms all over San Francisco. Never before have I tried to look so deeply of what’s right under my nose. I have walked past the same trees and stumps a hundred times, but now I am starting to see something more than just face value…
I finally took the leap and started alternative process for the first time. I will probably write more deeply on this topic, but I just want to mention that I am very interested in printing using the Platinum Palladium process, but as that is quite pricy for me at the moment and I am new to alternative process to begin with I decided to learn with the Salted Paper process. So far, I have found this method of printing to be very challenging, very beautiful, and very rewarding. It even caught the attention of my wife! Who doesn’t give a monkey’s uncle about photography. She says that the salted paper print looks like a drawing, while the traditional silver gelatin print looks like a photograph. Which is ironic because I used to draw so much. This seems like a good fit for me, I will continue to work at this method and eventually make my way up to platinum prints and beyond!
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