Two Years

Little Village, Chicago

6/17/20

Little Village, Chicago

7/14/22

Here are two photos I shot in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, just over 2 years apart. The first one was made during one of the weekly photo shoots I started during the pandemic, which were basically a way to keep me sane during the lockdowns and get me out of the house safely. The second was shot last week, when I returned to Little Village for another shoot.

June, 2020, when the first photo was made, in addition to being the height of the pandemic, was during the period of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and incidents of looting. Little Village experienced some looting, and I saw several boarded up storefronts. In July, 2022, I only saw a couple boarded up storefronts, and those appeared to be due to building renovations. It also looked like some new businesses had opened, some streetwear stores with a youthful presence, a nice addition to the busy street full of markets, taquerias, dollar stores, and stores selling quinceañera dresses. 26th st., the main commercial strip in Little Village, has long been one of the busiest and highest grossing shopping areas in Chicago, and it was nice to see that it's still a vibrant area.

This summer, I find myself doing some much needed processing, as I sort out everything that's occurred over the past two years, and how that's changed my work life, personal life, and my creative work. I'll save the navel-gazing for my personal journal, and leave these photos as a visual example of change in a hopefully positive direction.

The Summer Of Screenprinting V

Here are the final prints I made as part of my summer silkscreen class. The last day of the class was used to demonstrate monoprinting and finish up prints in progress. I wasn’t really working on anything, so I printed a transparency of this image to expose onto a screen.


This is an old photograph placed on a scanner and moved while the scan was in process. I decided to print with a blend of two colors of inks, mainly to use up some custom mixed colors. I settled on brown and light blue.
Here’s a print made once the colors had started to blend together.


There was also some red ink, mixed with just a touch of metallic silver, that needed to be used up. I threw some on the screen and ran another print.


Some more red ink added, and a couple of prints pulled to bleed the colors, and this was the result:


This one I like. It’s kind of creepy, the red has a splattered blood look that makes the portraits look ominous.

While making these prints, I had first printed onto a piece of mylar to help with registering the paper under the screen. I forgot to move the mylar with the wet ink while pulling a print onto a piece of scrap newsprint, and found afterwards that the ink from the mylar had transferred to the paper. Here’s the result:


I really like this. I find the wrinkles and visual noise appealing, and I can see myself exploring this idea further in the future. I love happy accidents!

So, that’s it for screenprinting, at least for now. I’ve just set up a screenprinting lab in my basement, and am currently running exposure tests and troubleshooting. Getting exposure times right is kicking my butt a little, but I hope get it worked out and start making more prints soon.

The Summer Of Screenprints IV

Here are a couple more prints from my recent foray into silkscreening.Both of these prints are remakes of pieces from my Postcard project from last summer. You can click the link for more details, but in a nutshell, these are reworked postcard sized collages from twenty years ago. I'll start with the original, a simple black and white photocopy of the collage made in 1988.

From Lightbender

Here's the digital reworking of the collage I did last summer:

From Lightbender

And finally, here's that reworked collage translated into a two-color screenprint:


While there may not seem to be much difference between this and the digital version, when viewing these in person the difference is immediately noticeable. The screenprint has a tactile quality that isn't present in the digital print, and the pink background is much brighter (I mixed white with a florescent pink ink to get that color).

Here's another of the old postcard collages remade. First, the photocopy of the original collage.


Next, my rework of the original from last summer.

From Lightbender

Finally, here is my revised collage done as a screenprint:


I like this quite a bit. I used two inks, pink and purple, and screened them together. It looks great, I like the colors, and the halftone pattern works really well with this image. I plan on experimenting with putting a gloss coat of a 50's inspired pattern over this, but haven't come up with anything I like yet.

Making these screenprints has rekindled my interest in these old collages once again. They seem to somehow make sense as screenprints. I'm in the process of setting up a silkscreening lab in my basement, I wouldn't be surprised if more of these postcards end up as my first prints once the lab is ready to go.

Still Working, Really!

As I wrote in my last post (was it really a month ago?) I am putting in some studio time this summer, but at a pretty slow rate. I was on vacation for a couple of weeks earlier this month, which I enjoyed greatly, although it kept me away from the studio. Now, I'm taking some lessons in screenprinting (which I somehow missed during my years in school), and hope to have something decent enough to post here soon. I've only made a couple of prints so far, but have more lessons Monday and Tuesday.


Meanwhile, here's a couple of small Van Dyke brown prints I made around the same time as the cyanotype on plywood experiments I posted about previously. These are vintage photographs that I scanned while dragging and sliding the prints around on the surface of the scanner. I made these scans over Spring break this year, while basically goofing around in my studio. I really wasn't planning on doing anything with these, but ended up liking some of them.


The photos came from two sources. One is a box of old photo portraits which has been sitting in a cabinet in the photo labs where I teach for as long as I've been working there (I'll be starting my ninth year this fall). I have no idea where they came from, and no one has ever expressed any interest in them, so I brought them home last year to keep them from getting ruined by splashing chemistry, and to do something creative with them.

The other source is more interesting. About a year ago, I bought a copy of the book LaPorte, Indiana. It was written by one of the people behind the wonderful Found Magazine. The book consists entirely of studio portraits dating from the 50's-70's from a portrait studio in LaPorte, IN. The book details finding dozens of boxes of these portraits in a diner in LaPorte, which now occupies the storefront formerly occupied by the photo studio. I was in LaPorte last fall doing volunteer work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and made it a point to stop at that same diner. Sure enough, they still have dozens of boxes of old portraits, which they sell for 50 cents apiece. I bought a couple dozen of them.


These were meant to be test prints, just to test the negatives. My original goal was to try to print onto gold leaf, but my attempts were such a dismal failure that they went directly into the trash. I have a couple ideas to try along those lines, but haven't had time to follow through. I don't know if I'll stick with these images (Van Dyke brown on plywood could be interesting), but they might fit well with other ideas I'm exploring right now.

From The Archives III

I’m nearing the end of spring break, which has been quite productive. I’ve worked a great deal in my studio this past week, and have a lot of work in progress (and a lot of thinking to do). I don’t have anything ready to post here, however, so it’s a good time for the third installment of From the Archives, wherein I post an old piece of work and write some comments about how it was made and what I was thinking about (you can read the first installment here, and the second installment here).

Doppler #1 was made in the summer of 1997, after finishing my first year of graduate school. Nearly all of the work I made my first year at Cranbrook reflected an interest in scientific structure and notation. After school let out, I was determined to continue the momentum in my studio practice and work throughout the summer (which was the first time since 1981 when I didn’t have a job over the summer). Carrying the ideas of structure and notation into the work I made over that summer, Doppler #1 was an attempt to visually recreate and diagram Doppler effect (changes in pitch of a moving object's sound). In this piece, the photographic fragments, the objects in the photographs, and the spaces between the strips of photographs get wider as they move from left to right across the composition. References to motion and sound occur throughout the photographs used to create this piece. Here’s a close-up (excuse the fuzziness, it’s a scan of an old slide, and I couldn’t get it to turn out well).


I shot the photos on a warm summer evening. I had my partner Kevin put on dress clothes, and I shot him playing his violin near a freeway overpass in a semi-wooded area close to where we were living in Ann Arbor. I waited until large trucks or other vehicles were on the overpass, as I wanted to emphasize motion and feature things that produced sound in the photos.

After processing the film, I scanned the negatives, and manipulated them in Photoshop by stretching and squashing the images. These manipulated images were taken to a digital imaging lab, where they were printed onto pieces of photographic film. I used this film to make the prints. There are three 20” X 24” photographs in this piece, all printed in a traditional wet darkroom on photographic paper. These prints were cut into strips and reassembled onto a large sheet of heavy paper (approx. 36” X 80”).

Doppler #1, along with a second doppler piece (with the unimaginative title Doppler #2), are the culmination of my lengthy exploration of scientific structure and notation. Upon finishing the two doppler pieces, I felt I that this direction for my work had run it’s course. I returned to school in the fall of 1997 determined to work in a different direction. Which I did, after a couple of false starts. I don’t think I did much with these pieces. I’ve never exhibited them anywhere, and I don’t remember ever critiquing them a Cranbrook. I liked them at the time, but they were lost in the shuffle of wanting to do something different with my work. Now, they’re in a closet in my studio.

New Polaroid Pieces

I returned to teaching this week after a semester break that was shorter than usual (and felt like it). While on break, I kept busy by making some Polaroid lifts and transfers. I tried something different with these. I took clippings from various magazines and comic books, stuck them in a slide mount, and used these as the slides I made my Polaroid prints from. I must admit that’s not my original idea. An independent study student of mine was doing the same thing last year while learning how to do Polaroid processes. I will say, however, that I’ve done a pretty similar thing for years. When I’m between projects, I take old magazines and comics, throw them on a light table, and photograph what I see. Here’s a page from a magazine I shot back in 2005.


While making these manipulated Polaroid prints, I tried doing both lifts and transfers with the same images. Here’s a Polaroid lift:

and here’s the same image done as a Polaroid transfer:


I expected the differences in the surface between the two pieces. What I wasn’t anticipating was the difference in color between them.

Here’s another lift:


and the same image done as a transfer:


Again, there’s a big difference in color between the two.
I think I know why this occurs. Polaroid lifts start with a fully developed Polaroid print. The photographic emulsion is removed from it’s original backing, and placed onto a new surface. Because the print is fully developed, the color is pretty accurate (for a Polaroid, that is. Polaroid prints aren’t known for having good color).

Polaroid transfers, on the other hand, are made from the negative half of a peel apart Polaroid print. The negative is peeled before the print fully develops. Because the color layers of the film transfer one at a time, depending on how long you wait before pulling the negative off, some of the color layers may have transferred to the print surface, and therefore won’t show up in the transfer.

Here’s one more set of prints. The Polaroid lift is first, followed by the transfer.




While this was fun and kept me busy for a few days, I’m a little ambivalent about the results. I like them, but I’m not sure how much I like them. I made about fifteen prints total, and I’m not sure if I’ll be doing any more like this. My favorite is the Polaroid lift you see above of the face with text on it. I’m considering trying a gum bichromate print of that image. If that turns out, I might make more of these (provided I can get Polaroid film, which just stopped being manufactured).

The Zombie JPG

It looks like JPG magazine might be back from the dead (more accurately saved from impending death, but I really wanted to title this post "The Zombie JPG"). After my previous post, my friend Brady sent me an email with some interesting information: Apparently, the news on JPG's impending demise generated enough interest that some interested buyers came forward. According to the JPG blog, which you can access on their site, they "are hopeful that something can be worked out with a number of potential last minute acquirers who want to help the JPG community live on...The good news is that this interest has bought us a little more time, so we are now looking to keep the site open at least through next week".

If you're interested in following this more closely, a new blog, Save JPG, has just opened.

Meanwhile, I've found another photo blog that has the potential to be interesting. Aiming to combat the widespread belief that all emerging artists are young and fresh out of art school, Expiration Notice will showcase work by photographers worldwide over age 35 and with no current gallery representation. There's nothing up on their site at the moment, they are currently taking submissions for the first edition which will go live in February. I've submitted some work, specifically images from a series of cyanotypes made a couple of years ago of photos of architectural models (one of them is at the top of this post). I'll be sure to let you know if they use them.

Goodbye JPG

I received an e-mail yesterday informing me that JPG magazine is ceasing publication and shutting down it’s website effective 1/5/09. They cite the current economic mess as their reason.

What I admired about JPG is also what drove me nuts about it: As a site dedicated to creative photography where anyone could join and post their photos, it leveled the playing field by avoiding distinctions between professionals and amateurs, commercial and fine art photographers, etc. Unfortunately, that philosophy resulted in an incredible number of trite, unoriginal photos being submitted.

I had some disagreements with JPG’s curatorial choices. While they claimed to be looking for unique and creative work, much of what was chosen for publication seemed pretty tame and expected to me. Also, they were capricious at best with how they enforced their policy banning digital manipulation. That said, I saw a great deal of really good work by unknown photographers on that site, and it will be missed.

Luckily, online photo sites appear to be on the increase. I’ve found several over the past few months that I like. None of these sites allow unmoderated uploading of images, and so are not as egalitarian as JPG, although several are dedicated to showing emerging artists. Having a more active curatorial role seems to largely eliminate the trite, uninteresting work that made up so much of what was found on JPG.

Fraction is a bi-monthly online photo magazine that shows work from established and emerging artists side by side. They also publish a blog.

F-Stop is also an online bi-monthly photography magazine featuring contemporary photography from established and emerging photographers from around the world.

Shots Magazine is an independent, reader-supported, quarterly journal of fine art photography, which presents work by a variety of photographers from around the world. Published online as well as in paper form.

Lenscratch is an interesting blog showcasing contemporary photography and photographers.

Notpaper is a blog about collage. Lots of interesting collage work, both digital and traditional, is featured.

The Postcard Project

Recently, I’ve been revising some work I made twenty years ago.
In 1988, I participated in a mail art project. The project involved making 35 original postcards and mailing them (in an envelope) to someone who was collecting all the cards, and sending back 35 cards from different artists. It sounded fun, and I threw myself headfirst into the project of making the postcards. At the time, I was mostly making collages, and I labored over these 35 cards for about three weeks, clipping images and text from 1950’s homemaker’s magazines, old textbooks, and religious books bought at garage sales, and painstakingly assembling collages out if them. I put a lot of time and effort into these postcards, and I sent them off just before the deadline, then anxiously awaited my package of postcards from other artists.

When the package arrived, I was pretty disappointed. I received 35 cards, but most of them were pairs of cards from an artist, instead of cards from 35 different artists. Much worse than that, however, was that many of the people involved obviously put no effort whatsoever into their cards. One person scribbled on a piece of poster board with several differently colored markers, then cut the board into 4 X 6 inch squares. Another glued whole pages of newspaper onto a sheet of poster board, and cut that into squares. I even received two of my own cards back (which I can’t seem to find right now). Receiving two scribbled pieces of board seemed pretty bad after pouring so much effort into the project. While there were a few decent photo cards in the package, many of the 35 cards ended up in the trash.

When I made my collaged postcards, I ran up against the deadline for mailing them and had to send them off before documenting them (this was years before I owned a scanner or a copy stand). Figuring it was better than nothing, I had my sister take them to work and make B&W photocopies of all 35 postcards. These copies have sat in a folder in my file cabinet for 20 years, until now.

With the home remodeling project (which just passed week five of the supposedly three week project-and it’s still not finished) I’ve been without my basement workspace for making alternative process prints. Tired of sitting around waiting to return to the studio, I pulled the 20 year old grainy B&W photocopies out of the filing cabinet, scanned them all, and have been digitally revising and coloring some of them.

Here’s the original photocopy of the revised card seen at the top of this post, for comparison.


Of the 35 cards, probably a third of them really aren’t very good and are best left buried in the file cabinet. I remember running out of steam about 3/4 of the way through making them, but forcing myself to push out a few more. Another third are ok, but nothing much can be done with them. That leaves about a dozen or so postcards that hold up decently well after 20 years, and that might benefit from being reworked and updated. I decided not to try and recreate the cards as they originally looked. After 20 years, I can’t remember how they looked in their original state, and in some cases, it’s hard to recreate anything from a grainy photocopy. Besides, it’s more fun making something new out of them.

Here’s another one, the original first, followed by the revision.




As of this writing, I have four of the cards completed, and two or three more in progress (including one that I’ve done two versions of, and don’t like either one). I enlarged a couple of them and printed them, and they look great. So good, in fact, that I’m thinking of listing them as prints on my Etsy page.

I’ll post more of these postcard revisions in a couple of days.

Photo Essays

Still not much happening, art-wise. The remodeling project in my house keeps dragging on and on, so I am without my basement space for making prints right now. I start teaching classes on Aug. 25 after having the summer off, and it's looking like the remodeling won't be finished before I resume teaching. I was hoping for a small break between the time the project is finished and school starts, to regroup and start working on my new darkroom (which is part of the remodeling job). That's not going to happen, so I'll have a few weeks of teaching while simultaneously putting the darkroom together. Should be nice and exhausting!

I have been doing some shooting, and have some ideas for things I want to start working on. I also have a few negatives for more bookmarks ready to print, which I probably won't be able to do for a few weeks.

I've also uploaded quite a few photos to JPG magazine, including a couple of photo essays. These are basically groups of thematically linked photos with a bit of writing. The first one I titled The Institute. It's several photos I took of the models for a new wing the Art Institute of Chicago is constructing. I've made cyanotypes of several of the photos I shot of these models, some of which I posted to this blog over a year ago.

The most recent photo essay I posted to JPG is titled Night at the Fair. It's a selection of photos I took at a small carnival back in 1996 using color saturated film.

Posting to JPG magazine and making bookmarks haven't really replaced making art, but it has kept me busy through a summer in which my studio work has taken a back seat. I know from past experience that as soon as I return to teaching, having a structured work week will likely push me back into the studio.

Animation News

I'm a huge animation fan. Some of my all-time favorite movies and tv shows are animated, and there's always a couple of cartoons on my Tivo's to do list. This weekend saw a couple of animation related events that I'm excited about.

First, here's the trailer for Ponyo On The Cliff, the latest film by Hayao Miyazaki, which opened this weekend in Japan.



I'm a huge fan of Miyazaki's work, his Studio Ghibli is arguably making the best animation in the world right now (OK, maybe it's tied with Pixar). If you haven't seen any of Miyazaki's work, drop everything, run to your nearest video store, and rent a copy of Spirited Away. Ponyo On The Cliff looks like another great film. I haven't heard when it will be released in the USA, but I'm hoping it won't be too long.

As long as I'm on the subject of animation, the final episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender aired this weekend on the cable channel Nickelodeon. I was out of town, and didn't catch them, but I have them on my Tivo and will finish them soon.

I must admit I'm a total Avatar fanboy. I could go on at length (and have, just ask my friends), but let me just say that it's no hyperbole that Avatar: The Last Airbender is the best animated series in at least a decade, and will likely be considered one of the best animated shows of all time. Trust me, it's that good. I wouldn't have named this blog after it otherwise!

If you haven't seen this show, I can't recommend it highly enough. The animation, writing, and art direction are of a quality rarely attempted in a children's cartoon program. Even the music is exceptional (I'm hoping for a soundtrack cd). Start with the first season, and watch the episodes in order. The story builds over the three seasons, and some of the characters go through significant development as the series progresses.
Avatar wasn't cancelled, by the way. It was planned from the beginning as a three season series with a finite number of episodes.

One more thing: If you haven't yet, go see Wall-E. It's excellent.

From The Archives II

I have a couple of gum bichromate prints nearly finished (I’m hoping to print the final layer today). I’m pretty sure they won’t turn out well, which has been the case with all the gum prints I’m attempting this summer. I have a few more images I’m working on, but they are still in the digital stage, and haven’t even been printed as negatives yet.

With work progressing slowly, it seems like a good time for the second installment of From the Archives, wherein I post an old piece of work and write some comments about how it was made and what I was thinking about (you can read the first installment here.


Altarpiece was made in the fall of 1996. It’s the first piece I made while in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art (technically, it’s a revision of that piece. When first made, it was prints only, I didn't have the bowling ball and pins yet). While it looks like a first graduate school piece (it’s a little overambitious, and could have been thought through a little better), I still really like the piece. It’s one of the few times I’ve ventured into installation-type work, which I appreciate, but don’t feel very compelled to produce. It’s also funny, and the humor in the piece seems natural and isn’t forced.

Here’s a short statement I wrote after completing the piece:
Altarpiece unites the iconography of two very different American cultural institutions, religion and sports. Bowling is the quintessential American sport, being a pastime for the masses and recreation for the non-fit and non-elite. The imposition of bowling imagery onto the basic triptych form of an altarpiece comments on the fervor and passion felt for sports in general and also on the elevation of sports in our culture to an almost religious station.
Altarpiece is a mixed-media work, combining hand-colored black and white photographs with gold leaf, a wooden pedestal, bowling ball, and bowling pins. The negatives used to print the photographs were created digitally from various appropriated and original source images.

The digital negatives made for Altarpiece aren’t like the ones I make now for alternative process photography. Back in 1996, inkjet printers did not lay down enough ink to make a useable negative. For this project, I had to take my digital files to a commercial printer and have 4X5 transparencies made (at about $15 each). I used those transparencies to print real photographs. The images came from a book on bowling instruction, and a history of altarpieces checked out of Cranbrook’s library. The photo of the bowling trophy I took myself (see below).

I’ll finish with a couple anecdotal stories about gathering the bowling paraphernalia.
I needed a bowling trophy to photograph for the center panel, and couldn't find one anywhere. At the time, my sister was living across the street from a thrift store in Chicago, and went there to look for one. She misunderstood what I needed, and ended up buying about 15 bowling trophies that happened to be in the store. I used them to decorate my studio at school, and all year long, people thought I was a bowling fanatic. I kept the one I used for the center panel (It’s still in my studio, on top of a bookcase), but I don’t know what happened to the rest of them. They’re probably still decorating student studios at Cranbrook.
I also had trouble finding a bowling ball (I didn’t want to spend money on a new one), but a friend at school said she would bring one back when she went home for the holidays. Turns out, home was Fresno, CA, and the purple bowling ball (in a tacky baby-blue case) was her carryon luggage for the flight back to Michigan. I wonder if you could carry a bowling ball onto a plane today with all the ridiculous new ‘security’ measures?

Altarpiece won a juror award at an exhibit titled Myth America at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI in 1997. I also exhibited it at the annual faculty art exhibit at Moraine Valley Community College in 2006 (the show’s theme was showing older work alongside current work), where it received many interesting comments.

Road Trip To Milwaukee

If you read the last post, you'll know that I'm busy with home remodeling this summer. Not so busy that I can't take a couple of weekend trips, however, and one of those weekenders is going to be to Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Art Museum has two exhibits this summer that look really interesting. Gilbert & George are a British art (and life) partnership that make immense, brightly colored photo mosaic/collage pieces with provocative content. Some of their work is really great, and it's all worth seeing.
The Sensory Overload exhibit of Kinetic and Op art looks interesting as well. Both exhibits look infinitely more interesting than the Jeff Koons show at the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago.

Return Of The Son Of Bookmarks Strike Again Part IV

I haven't done much with my gum prints in progress for the past few days. I haven't been terribly motivated, to be honest, after getting crappy results every time I try lately. I'm also busy with other (non-art) things.

We're adding a bathroom to the house, to replace a tiny one off of the kitchen that will eventually become a pantry. I've been to more tile stores, bath fixture shops, and Home Depots in the past couple of weeks than I'd like, and I'm not done yet. Part of that project will be adding a darkroom to my basement, which is great, but the construction is likely to shut down my basement workspace (and the ability to print) for a couple of weeks.


It's not all been tedious trips to look at sinks and toilets. An old friend from college, whom I haven't seen for ten years, passed through Chicago while taking the Amtrak to visit relatives in Michigan. I met her at Union Station downtown last week (her train was over five hours late-mass transit really sucks in the US), and again yesterday when she was making her return trip to South Carolina.
I have friends coming into town for July 4th weekend as well, which will be fun, but I won't be doing much in the studio while they are here.


So, here's more of the bookmarks I've been making and selling on Etsy.com. I've actually been selling a few-right after my last post, someone bought four of them. I've got a few more ready to print, but probably won't do so for a little while.

Still More Bookmarks

I’m still working on some gum prints, and still having some trouble with the yellow and magenta layers being too intense. Gum prints are notorious for being fussy, even changes in the weather can cause them to turn out differently. That’s the only thing I suspect at the moment-most of the gum prints I’ve made in the past were done in the dead of winter. Now it’s summer, and my basement, where I’m printing, is much warmer and more humid than it was when I was successfully making gum prints. Why heat and humidity would only effect yellow and magenta, however, is a mystery.


Meanwhile, I’ve been making more cyanotype bookmarks, and really enjoying it. I think it’s the ability to do whatever I feel like without regard for creating a cohesive body of work and the creative challenge of working in a tight, narrow format that I find appealing. I also can work on them when I have spare time or don’t feel like doing anything else.



I wasn’t planning on making more of these. But then, someone bought a couple of them from my Etsy shop, and that inspired me to design some more. I now have 29 different bookmarks for sale there.


I’m also experimenting with making larger prints from my bookmark designs. I enlarged a couple of them to 18” X 3.5”, printed the digital negatives, and made prints from them. They came out beautifully, so I listed those on my Etsy shop as well.


These prints are editioned, I’ll only make 25 of each design. Rather than print them all off, I put a note in my Etsy listings for people to contact me if there’s a specific one they are interested in.

Photographer's Rights

I took this photo in front of a church on the southwest side of Chicago last fall. I had gone there to shoot photos of the rides at a parking lot carnival, but a guy walking around with a camera at a place where children congregate was too much for the college-age security team to bear. At one point I spoke with the pastor of the church, and showed him images I had shot with the digital camera so he could see I wasn't interested in photographing children. He gave me permission to shoot at the carnival, but the 'security' still tailed me so closely that I got uncomfortable and left. On my way back to the car, I spotted this chalk drawing a child had done on the sidewalk in front of the church, and snapped a photo of it. It's more interesting than the shots I made at the carnival. I like how it's kind of charming and funny (and maybe a little creepy) at the same time.

I've heard several accounts recently of people getting harassed for taking legal photos in public places (a student of a colleague of mine was stopped by Homeland Security for shooting a photo of an oil refinery). Here's a short article on the legal rights of photographers. Not surprisingly, you have the right to shoot almost anything you want. There's some useful links at the bottom of the article, be sure to check them out.

Recent Gum Prints

Here’s a couple of gum bichromate prints I’ve been working on recently. They’re not that great, but it’s an issue with printing, not with the images themselves. For some reason, the yellow layer seemed really overexposed in both of these prints (I printed the yellow layer exactly like I always have, and don’t know what caused it to be so intense). I soaked them in water with a splash of ammonia to remove excess exposure, but that didn’t really work. So I decided to continue on with the other colors, thinking I could print multiple layers to correct for too much yellow.

However, when I printed the magenta layer, everything seemed strongly orange tinted, something that was not improved when I printed the cyan layer. After printing the black layer, I gave up. On one of the prints, I managed to print the black layer out of registration. I tried removing it (usually easy to do when the layer is still wet), but it wouldn’t budge.

I’ll try again with these in a few days. I’m working on two different gum prints right now, and want to finish those before redoing these. I’m trying something different with one of these new prints, and if it works, I might apply the same idea to these images (more on that when I post those prints in a few days).


About these images: They were taken in the Washington, DC metro last summer. They are both photos of subway trains moving through stations. I copied the photos and flipped them, to create semiabstract, impossible spaces. I actually made these images, and the color separations for them, last fall, before I had even started making gum prints. By the time I started printing my first gum bichromates, the themes I was working with for my exhibit last spring were much more concrete, and these pieces just didn’t fit. All of the pieces in that exhibit (many can be seen if you look through old blog entries) were straightforward shots with minimal manipulation. Now that the show has come and gone, I’m interested in exploring how color and image can be manipulated, and how those manipulations work with various alternative processes. These two images fit nicely into that exploration.

More Cyanotype Bookmarks

Here's a few more of the cyanotype bookmarks I've been making.



As you will see if you look at the column on the right side of this page, I've now got a bunch of them listed for sale on the Etsy page I set up.



I also printed 12 more bookmarks from new designs last night. A few of them didn't turn out like I wanted, but leaving them aside, I now have 26 different bookmarks.



I'll be posting the new ones to the Etsy page sometime today or tomorrow.


I'm about done making new bookmark designs for now. At least I have no plans to produce many more of them. I do have some ideas I haven't tried yet, and I want to rework a couple of the ones I've already made that didn't work out. I'm also in the middle of making several gum bichromate prints, however, and don't want the bookmarks to grab all of my attention.