FAULTY

The last time that I attempted to shoot I was unfortunately put at a great disadvantage. When I checked out my strobe kit I assumed that it would have been checked and I would be assured that the proper equipment would be inside, I was wrong. I brought all this damn equipment home and up my 4 flights of stairs, which is not easy when you have a bunch of torn ligaments and cartilage in your wrist....I had everything set up and my friend who I hardly see had come to model for me, except the sinc cord was missing... This meant that everything I had checked out in terms of lighting would be of absolutely no use to me. I shot anyway, and am hoping there are a couple shots that I can manipulate in post.
I am shooting today in the studio and am praying that everything goes well. I even did little painted sketches for the basic premise of my shoot. Wish me luck!

New Projects

Here's a combination of medium and large format projects that I have been working on the past few weeks. Briefly, the color ones of the blond are medium format and for a project I am working on inspired by 60s icons, fashion, movies, interior decorating...you name it. The black and white and color ones with the brunette are large format and are more aimed at conveying a quietness or subtle attitude femininity and sensuality...

Non Silver

I finally have some scans of the work I did in my non silver process class this past semester. This group of work feature examples of multiple alternative print processes such as; cyanotype, van dyke and salt. By alternative process, I mean that it is an alternate to the traditional silver gelatin print which is standard for black and white darkroom printing. Using specific chemical recipes, we mixed our chemistry and applied it to gelatin coated, cold press water color paper, on which we then placed 4x5" or medium format, black and white negatives. Once we had secured the negatives on the chemical emulsion, we inserted them in a UV light box for exposure (if weather permits, you can also you the sun for exposure and it is twice as fast). Once you have your exposure, the time depends on the process, there are new sets of chemistry which you immerse you exposed paper in. Essentially you are making complicated, but attractive contact prints. This class was extremely tedious, but gratifying when the results were good.

FINALLY FINISHED

Here are my final images for my advanced studio portfolio. Three of the b&w images are simulations of the film Aplphaville, the color one is a portrait/still life taken from the film Pierrot le fou and the b&w image of the woman leaning backwards in the gown is taken from a portrait of Rita Hayworth. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, SOOOOOO MUCH, to Max, Katrina, Carianne and Romina! I wouldn't have been able to complete any of these photographs without out you guys, I am honestly overjoyed with the success of these images!

Finally Film

If there was any confusion about my last two posts, which there seemed to be, the last one I posted are the original photographs shot by Guy Bourdin and Jerry Schatzberg, not me. For an assignment I copied them to achieve the lighting. The photos I have posted in this post are another version of the Guy Bourdin shot that I already shot and posted, and the two large format versions I just shot and processed of the two digital ones I already posted. The Guy Bourdin shot, once again caused me a few problems...Such the camera moving right before I took the picture, altering my frame, and the backdrop we were using was all fucked up and torn at one of the top corners..

Follow up

Looking at them now, both of the photographs I used for my imitations could be a little more constrasty. I am frustrated with the Bourdin shot, and how I wasn't able to get that pure white since I shot the image in color and later desaturated it. I guess we'll see how the b&W 4x5" negatives turned out, once I develop them. Anyhow, these are the original images.

This is only the beginning of my final portfolio for my advanced studio class, but I am really happy with the results from today! These are only the digital shots which I was testing the lighting with, I shot large format as well but need to process my film and pray that they turn out. Both of these shots are imitations of famous photographs, which is the whole point of the assignment. The photograph with the leg and woman's face, is a Guy Bourdin shot and the other was originally a shot of Edie Sedgwick by Jerry Schatzberg.