Saturday, February 16, 2013

A Link you won't find on the internet

This one illustrates several things about montage work that i have been noticing, increasingly, over 30 years, and that i must impress on any reader, anyone trying to do this kind of work.

#1 - it's not just about darkroom technique, (or photoshop tricks if you're working digitally), you have to have the basic building blocks (images!) first.
And not just any images, but images that are ... right, for what you want to build.

I don't know about anyone else, but the first step to any of my montage images is always...'being there' to take something that tickles my 'sixth sense' to begin with. I don't know what the trigger is for this sixth sense, i just know it when i see it. I just walk, i see something, and i am reaching for camera, instinctively. And then i shoot... sometimes many frames, a whole roll, of any situation.

#2 - Sifting thru all these images.... not just physically going over/looking at... the contact sheets, but also storing them in this strange thing, this 'cerebral cuisinart', we call a 'brain'... and letting dreams do their work. As i am drifting off to sleep, i see things...and as i wake up, i see... more things....not just my alarm clock either.
The brain ( or should i say 'the mind'?) works in ways we can't possibly understand... but can definitely appreciate.

That's how this one came about, here's the P'shop sketch, above.
The hole in the rock at Joshua Tree (at the top) was shot many (15?) years ago. And i shot a full roll of this situation. Just as the native american who made the glyphs surrounding the hole, i saw it as a magical place. (Click on the link at the bottom to a page on my site to see much more of this place.)


The big 'link' was found in the Marin Headlands just a few years ago, a remnant of military activity/building that ceased 40 or so years ago, and has been left to decay. I shot one frame....Sometimes?...one frame is..all that is needed.


This one just 'landed in my head', w/ no warning.
The concept is rather clear, isn't it? The hole is an escape, the single link is... being bound, chained. Perhaps this montage poses the choice, the challenge, 'whether will you go'?

The bird emphazies the freedom of the opening.

The dodging of the two frames is a bit tricky, gotta get it just right, i like the way the chain link bleeds into the hole, just barely - they are apart/different... but strangely attached, locked together.
Here's the final print:
As usual, larger images at:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2013/Link/index.html

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The 'whatever catches my eye' file this month:


http://framework.latimes.com/2013/01/23/behind-the-lens-star-trail-time-lapse-over-death-valley/
Gavin Heffernan - Sunchaser Pictures



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Framework
Capturing the world through photography, video and multimedia

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/06/05/reframed-in-conversation-with-fine-art-photographer-mitch-dobrowner/#/0


Awesome skies!!! Love it!!

http://www.kopeikingallery.com/artists/view/mitch-dobrowner

http://www.mitchdobrowner.com/
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http://noahpurifoy.com/

click on 'joshua tree outdoor museum'
the navigation in this site is a bit bewildering to me... but what i see is very nice!
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http://www.galletameadows.com/
click on the 'photo gallery' link. You will not be disappointed.

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Codex: Fair celebrates fine art of books
HOME & GARDEN Foundation focuses on handcrafted tomes, not just words on screens
Nancy Davis Kho
Updated 3:02 am, Wednesday, February 6, 2013
As far as Berkeley fine-art printer Peter Koch is concerned, the rising popularity of e-readers has nothing to do with books.

"The future of the book is assured," says Koch, who with his wife, Susan Filter, founded the Codex Foundation to preserve and promote the handmade book as a work of art.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Codex-Fair-celebrates-fine-art-of-books-4252956.php#ixzz2KAem4Uii

http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Codex-Fair-celebrates-fine-art-of-books-4252956.php