Today was another day for experimentation. I knew I would get around to it. I wanted to make some contact prints today, but I couldn't resist loading another sheet of 4x5 black and white paper into my Busch Pressman camera. It was sometime after 1 p.m., and the heat wasn't too oppressive (we are in a temporary lull between these "cookouts", as I call these days of heatwave.) I ventured outside and began to water a few of the trees, but not before pointing my camera at a bush in the back yard. This is what I obtained after about 30 minutes.
I know, I know, it doesn't seem promising. It is hard to believe you can extract an image from this. I did, however, take it out of the film holder and hide it in a drawer inside the house, to return after a few hours of work on my class preparation. When I scanned and inverted, this is what I obtained:
Not a very good shot. It was my fault, I pointed it at the middle of a bush, and was using f8 so there was no shallow depth of focus. So, everything just muddles together into a jumble of leaves. I didn't really invert it very well but it was the best I could do. It is promising, but I have to work on composition and technique.
Later on, I prepared my 8x10 picture frames. I removed the wrapping and went outside and cut some flowers and leaves. I would later find out that you have to be careful with the material you pick out. Very green and thick leaves will not work well with this process. The will impede the passage of light, and the best you can hope for are silhouettes. Better to look for material like flowers that are already vaguely translucent. I went ahead and picked some out and made a composition, actually, two compositions, and I laid the frames out side by side. I noted that in the first one I had trapped some ants and they were moving around under the glass frame. I am afraid they were cooked in this experiment. I left both frames out for about 60 minutes. I noticed that the sun was so hot (it is the UV rays of the sun that allow for this process to work) that the photo paper started turning blue after just a minute. Also, I discovered, leave the frames out for a longer period of time, you will get better colors.
Here is the first composition:
Yes, this is what I obtained after I took it out of the frame! It was a little dark, but I loved the colors I was able to generate. And it amazes me all the more because this is black and white paper, and for colors to appear on this material is still nothing short of magic for me.
I scanned the image and then played around with light levels and some of the colors. Nothing much, just a few seconds of manipulation, and not on Photoshop nor Lightroom, I was using my Mac so I just used the simple image editing program that came included. This is what I obtained.
I am very happy with the colors and the textures and the contrast! I feel I should send this in to get it printed. I showed the first first from the photo frame and she seemed to like it. I love the processed version. The composition works, too, not like the black and white version above.
Here is my other composition. I will upload both the extracted print from the frame as removed, and then, the scanned and manipulated version.
I enjoyed this composition too. I want to try a few more tomorrow. I already warned my mom that her flowers are in peril as we try to create art, and she took it in good humor.
Speaking of other things, I walked around this morning after taking out the trash bins. I followed a slightly different route in the beginning. There are a few people I encounter as I do so, jogging, walking or riding a bicycle. They are almost always men, and they don't wear masks. It seems to be a "manly" thing not to wear them and to not think about the danger you pose to other people of spreading the Covid virus. It always makes me upset. Before the virus, of course, we were not fearful, but not, we should all be taking precautions. Before the virus, I almost never saw anyone else on the sidewalks. People drove by, of course, traffic was always here, but I didn't see that many people walking or jogging. Now, it seems as if there are more. I think too many people don't have jobs or else are so stressed by this situation that they might have jobs but, if they were at home during regular working hours, they are going out to exercise. Of course, it stands to reason, the gyms are not open, but not all the people I encounter are the type one would associate with gym memberships. Many of them are homeless people.
Tomorrow I don't know what I will do besides continuing to work on my Remote Teaching class. I want to go visit another botanical garden, the one in Claremont. Maybe I will go if we have relatively mild temperatures the way we did today. I know, all flowers and plants and maybe a few buildings, that is all I seem to photograph these days, but it is something.
Want to continue reading some works of theater. I want to read "El tragaluz", a famous Spanish work that supposedly has some elements of science fiction. I am struck with a line from the other work I completed, or re-read, which was "Las bicicletas son para el verano". The final scenes are particularly poignant. They details the ways in which the liberals in the Spanish Civil War were punished by the winners, the fascists of Francisco Franco. In one, the father tells his son that he fears he will be arrested soon, and he entrusts the care of the family to him in case that happens. In all likelihood, he will probably be sent to a "campo de concentración". But were they hoping for some reconciliation after the end of the war? ¿No que había llegado la paz? And the father corrects him and tells him, it wasn't peace that arrive, "llegó la victoria", with all that that implies about a conquering army punishing the defeated population. It was poignant. I will teach this work this fall in my theater class.
Es todo. Buenas noches, Daddy.
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