Tea toning

Image © PeteM2020

Here is another B&W Photoshop experiment. To bring alive and extended the tonal range of traditional black and white prints, the old darkroom alchemists very successfully toned images with tea. 

Despite being a lengthy, time consuming and rather smelly process, it is still practiced today by diehard darkroom enthusiasts. Although the results can be quite distinctive and great, I think I’ll stick to the Photoshop variant!

Local Galleries

 “Desert Country” at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery is showing Aboriginal art spanning the past 40 years. The exhibition includes works by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Daisy Nakamarra, Rover Thomas, Nura Rupert and Utopia artists Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Kathleen Petyarre. The exquisite details and rich colour in some of the paintings are quite outstanding. 


I was less taken by the Robin Boyd exhibition – homage to Robin Boyd and the award-winning houses he designed and built at Frankston and on the Mornington Peninsula in the mid to late 50’s. For me, having grown up surrounded by innovative and clever Scandinavian architecture from the same era, I must admit to be less than impressed by what was on display. 


The McClelland Gallery has currently three exhibitions on. 


“Dreamweavers” takes the viewer on a strange and enchanting course through the worlds of dreams, nightmares and imagination. The visually appealing combination of sculpture, digital media (great light-boxes), photography and painting should be a source of inspiration for every IDM student.


“Landscapes and Vignettes” – etchings, dry point and aquatints by John Farmer. The extensive collection on display is a testament to what can be achieved by skill, dedication and attention to detail. The tonal range he achieved in his prints is remarkable - a must see.


“The Syndicate” - a sculpture installation by Simon Gilby. There are ten life-size human figures made in steel, cast pewter and resin. The steel filigree work and surface patterning combined with clever lighting brings the figures alive. Shame photography is not allowed in the gallery – these figures would have been perfect for the B&W assignment.

LensWork

I am catching up on my reading and have just finished the October 2007 edition of LensWork, a US periodical dedicated to black and white photography. (OK, I am a bit behind in my reading, but I’m working on it!)

Contrary to all predictions, old-fashioned black and white film and traditional darkroom work are having quite a revival. My local photo supplier tells me that he is now selling more film, chemicals and toners than he did 5 years ago.

I’m quite tempted. A few rolls of Kodak TriX or some Ilford HP5 -  - hmm.

Image © PeteM2020

In the meanwhile here are a couple of digital B&W images manipulated in Photoshop. At least I did not end up with smelly and stained hands from the toning process!

Image © PeteM2020

Dry point

The Paddington Reservoir Sunken Garden offers a relaxing oasis for the community to enjoy with its immaculate landscaping, boardwalk, lighting and furniture. Whilst most communities are busily removing graffiti  - here it has been carefully restored!

This HDR image was taken of the eastern chamber and processed using Photomatix. A dry point plate was then made using that image as a guide. With the plate prepared, a black and white edition was printed on Dutch Etching paper.

One of the prints was scanned and then mixed and matched with the HDR image in Photoshop. This is what I ended up with! 

Image copy PeteM2020

A larger version is on ONE IN THE EYE , my new web site.

One in the eye

I have now put together my new website showing some of this year’s work. Web design and coding is to me a perfect marriage between art and science. However, despite my typing speed being slow, painfully inaccurate and the coding taking forever – there is a sense of elation when the site is uploaded, working, and there for the world to see. Long live the www!

Image © PeteM2020

The hard part done, I can now “populate” the pages with my art works as they are completed. Here is a link to the site: ONE IN THE EYE 

HDR Revisited

I find night photography and HDR a heady mix.  Add a bit of rain to enhance reflections and saturate the colours and the image becomes quite dynamic.

Image © PeteM2020
Click on the image for a larger version

This image was caught in Docklands on a grisly, dark, wet and cold winters evening. At the time I wondered what I was doing there, but having processed the image in Photomatix Pro, I now feel the outing was well worth the trouble.


Photomatix Pro has just been updated to version 4.1 – the update is free. The download (Mac) was about 10Mb and installation proved trouble free.

Seahorse

The seahorse linocut worked quite well as an embossed print, but the black and white versions looked far too busy. Not a great result. Had a go at a few different printing techniques – not much improvement. Obviously I have still a lot to learn about linocuts and printmaking!

However, having spent a number of hours cutting out the design and printing it, I was not quite ready to give up. I scanned the print into Photoshop and had a bit of a play – this is one of the results:   

Image © PeteM2020