smp_photos (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} smp_photos) wrote,@ 2008-09-05 11:29:00 |
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Seven Preview - Ira
This is a cropped portion of "Ira", one of the images featured in Seven
To see all of Ira and the other six sins, come to my opening at the Homer Watson House & Gallery this Sunday Sep 7 from 2-4pm.
The sin: I'm interpreting ira as wrath, fury, rage and/or anger, perhaps with violence.
Concept: Wrath was perhaps the easiest image to visualize. Anger and destruction invoke the colour red and sharp, harsh textures.
Raw material: I knew early on I wanted to start with broken glass -- it's sharp and scary looking, and an easy result of anger -- and so I set about my studio to do just that: break glass. I had found a small box of offcuts framing glass from a framing shop by the side of the road, so had lots of glass to play with.
On the set: It was difficult, however, figuring out just how to break it in a controlled fashion, especially since I needed a backdrop behind the glass that would survive the breaking force but provide no distractions. After many experiments with glass flying around the room and some broken black stoneware, I wound up putting a small cloth over each pane of glass and smacking it briskly with a small hammer. For the background, one of my old squares of mounted black velvet served well, as did a small sheet of steel. Several sets of broken glass were augmented with some red paint, but in the end I used a frame that was just glass on velvet and obtained red by shifting the glass's blue/green halfway around the spectrum.
Photo tech: To light the glass, I used two small strobes set very low, lighting the glass on edge, and set white cardboard atop each strobe to shield the camera lens from them. Most of the shots were done hand-held with extension tubes on the 85mm lens at F8 or F11 to maximize sharpness and depth-of-field, but this shot and two others were done with a fisheye lens.
Post-processing: Much trial and error and a lot of fortuitous experimentation brought me to the final image. As mentioned, the red was derived by shifting the glass's native blue/green to another part of the spectrum. Strong warping produced the ripples that remind me strongly of impact shockwaves, and also created the white radial impact lines. The texture of the glass appears near the centre of the ripples and looks very sharp and dangerous -- just as I'd hoped. I chose to use a focal blur technique on the outer edges of the image to provoke the feeling of the tunnel vision one gets when furious; some strong vignetting (corner darkening) helped there also.
Warping transformation: RhoSource = ( J * ASIN( RhoImage ) ) ( 1/K ) , aspect ratio alteration, 3D rotation and projection, focal blur and vignetting.
A printed series journal with all seven image statements including the formulas and raw exposures, will be at the gallery for the duration of the exhibition.
This is a cropped portion of "Ira", one of the images featured in Seven
To see all of Ira and the other six sins, come to my opening at the Homer Watson House & Gallery this Sunday Sep 7 from 2-4pm.
The sin: I'm interpreting ira as wrath, fury, rage and/or anger, perhaps with violence.
Concept: Wrath was perhaps the easiest image to visualize. Anger and destruction invoke the colour red and sharp, harsh textures.
Raw material: I knew early on I wanted to start with broken glass -- it's sharp and scary looking, and an easy result of anger -- and so I set about my studio to do just that: break glass. I had found a small box of offcuts framing glass from a framing shop by the side of the road, so had lots of glass to play with.
On the set: It was difficult, however, figuring out just how to break it in a controlled fashion, especially since I needed a backdrop behind the glass that would survive the breaking force but provide no distractions. After many experiments with glass flying around the room and some broken black stoneware, I wound up putting a small cloth over each pane of glass and smacking it briskly with a small hammer. For the background, one of my old squares of mounted black velvet served well, as did a small sheet of steel. Several sets of broken glass were augmented with some red paint, but in the end I used a frame that was just glass on velvet and obtained red by shifting the glass's blue/green halfway around the spectrum.
Photo tech: To light the glass, I used two small strobes set very low, lighting the glass on edge, and set white cardboard atop each strobe to shield the camera lens from them. Most of the shots were done hand-held with extension tubes on the 85mm lens at F8 or F11 to maximize sharpness and depth-of-field, but this shot and two others were done with a fisheye lens.
Post-processing: Much trial and error and a lot of fortuitous experimentation brought me to the final image. As mentioned, the red was derived by shifting the glass's native blue/green to another part of the spectrum. Strong warping produced the ripples that remind me strongly of impact shockwaves, and also created the white radial impact lines. The texture of the glass appears near the centre of the ripples and looks very sharp and dangerous -- just as I'd hoped. I chose to use a focal blur technique on the outer edges of the image to provoke the feeling of the tunnel vision one gets when furious; some strong vignetting (corner darkening) helped there also.
Warping transformation: RhoSource = ( J * ASIN( RhoImage ) ) ( 1/K ) , aspect ratio alteration, 3D rotation and projection, focal blur and vignetting.
A printed series journal with all seven image statements including the formulas and raw exposures, will be at the gallery for the duration of the exhibition.
