Hiatus

Time to revive the blog – back to image making and a bit of playing with code again. I have been skirting around the topic for some time with plenty of experiments, but little to show for the efforts.

Did quite a bit of analogue (wet chemistry) B&W in my youth. Enjoyable, time consuming and messy!  Now, with the advent of Photoshop filters to emulate the “film look”, it’s become a lot faster and easier. But is it the same “look and feel”?

I will argue it’s not – or maybe that’s just a nostalgic notion!

“A Clean Sheet” Kodak Tri-X 400 emulation © PeteM2020

Saprophytic Confabulations

Image © PeteM2020

Mushrooming was a part of my childhood’s annual autumn ritual; foraging being integral to the genetic makeup of most Scandinavians and East Europeans. For a few brief weeks, the fungi were eagerly sought, hunted and consumed in large quantities. 


Despite the purported magical properties and olfactory delights of those musky smelling specimens, they never fired off any of my culinary or poetic synapses. For me the memories are instead of fire in the belly and the painful production of large quantities of methane and related gasses. Darwin may have had an explanation for this anomaly!

Pappus

Image © PeteM2020

Whilst rummaging through the undergrowth (see previous blog entry) I found this beauty - a Dandelion seed head.  Photographed up close and personal it reveals some fascinating structures – mix in some Photoshop trickery and quite a surreal image is the result.

Petals and sepals

Backlit petals have a certain magical quality – but you most often have to lie on the ground to catch it!  Worth the effort though. 

Image © PeteM2020

Whilst working on the image in PS, I was uncertain of how much to retain of the striations on the sepals. But, heck, it’s a flower picture after all, so some reality has to be retained – or does it?  

Office Fodder "R" Us

Played about in Photoshop and After Effects making my contribution to the "Dandenong Nocturnal - Car Park" project. I didn't spend any time on sound effects, as I believe there won't be any speakers at the projection venue. Here is my first attempt:-

Photogravure

Photogravure - a possible perfect meeting of digital photography and traditional intaglio printmaking. Is this the medium I have been looking for? Inspired by the prints made by Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932), a botanist and photographer in turn-of-the-century Berlin, I have in mind a small edition of “Botanicals”.

Blossfeldt devoted his entire photographic output to plant parts: twig ends, seedpods, tendrils, leaf buds, etc. This was the beginning of macro photography - showing the world that the unfamiliar shapes from the messy vegetal world are in fact startling, elegant architectural forms.

Image © PeteM 2020

Stairs

I admire people that can draw – be it a simple expressive sketch or a complex life-like rendering. I freely admit it’s a skill I haven’t mastered.

But, I was rather encouraged reading about Henri Cartier-Bresson describing his 35mm Leica camera as his “small instant sketch pad” – brilliant, I’m with him!

When I spotted this staircase in downtown Wan Chai (HK) I was instantly drawn to its clean graphic lines. It took a bit of work in Photoshop to create the image I had in mind, but after a few different versions, here it is!

Image © PeteM 2020