The latest image from my Women and Cameras series features Memento Mori, an example of a model who understands the important of having a story behind the image, On our shoot in High Park last week, one character after another appeared, as a story out of a Lewis Carroll type fairy tail appeared. In the image below, we have a puppet without strings.
In the hustle and bustle of Dundas Square, I took this picture of model Stacy, who is holding an old Zeiss 120 folder. I am continuing to find the analog/digital hybrid approach quite effective; the Sliver Efex Pro plug-in allows me to get the last bit of tonality I’m looking for from the scanned negative.
Another cyanotype this time around. This picture was made at the Riverdale Zoo in Toronto, again using my Rolleicord Twin-Lens Reflex. I created a digital negative and then made the cyanotype below. The paper has a fairly coarse texture, and I like the effect it has on the image. Just one more reason why it matters to see a print in your hands, not just pixels on a screen.
This image was made with my Nikon D90, and processed using the just released Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2. We were all on the ferry boat from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to Virgin Gorda in the British Islands when I noticed this building on an island, quite some distance away. Luckily, as we left port we got close enough for me to take some images. Even though the original capture was a colour digital image, from the beginning I knew I needed a vintage black and white treatment, so Silver Efex to the rescue:
As a born-again agnostic, I feel a bit conflicted when making images with religious themes. I am still drawn to religious architecture and some liturgical music, but right now that’s as far as it goes. The image below is from the Dome cathedral in Cologne. I was drawn by the atmosphere, ritual and sense of history, but that’s about as far as it goes right now.
Quite often people talk about what an image can reveal, but today I will talk about what an image can hide. This is an image I created this past week by the Don river, using my Mamiya M645J camera, and Tri-X film. Except for the lamp post in the middle of the image, there is nothing to indicate that this is a polluted river in the middle of central Toronto, as opposed to some unspoiled wilderness somewhere else.
One experiment I plan to try this year is to take a water sample from this river, and develop a roll of black and white film with it; it wouldn’t surprise me if I get a recognizable image!
You don’t often get a second chance to capture an image. This week, I had that chance; I had to be downtown early on Tuesday morning for a meeting, and the combination of the rain-slicked pavement and lights made an arresting combination. I only had my iPhone with me, and while I tried to capture the scene, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted.
Luckily, I had to be downtown again the next day at the same time, with the same rainy weather: my second chance.
While many of my autumn pictures are either focused on splashes of colour, or are black and white texture studies, sometimes I feel the need to explore the space in-between. The image below is one I captured a couple of weeks ago in the Don Valley in Toronto; the paint on the bridge is faded and blotchy, and the taggers have been busy. The image did not work in either full colour or black and white, so I turned the colour down quite a bit, and that captured the mood of gentle decay for me.
My Third Eye 