christian harkness – photo blog

Of step tables, rain & trying to be a bit more systematic about my Cyanotype printing

December 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

It is cloudy and raining outside – so I thought it a good time to start getting a little systematic about my Cyanotype printing.  I have my chemicals, paper, and the Arista OHP film. What I don’t have is a step table to test my prints and make correction curves.

I could never quite figure out what to do with step tables, and how to make correction curves from them till I read Ron Reeder’s book and website.  I don’t think one needs the book at all, it is nicely explained and free on his web site.

This is the first time I am using Arista OHP film, previously I have used Pictorico, but it has gotten a bit more expensive, so I am trying the Freestyle/Arista stuff.  They humorously recommend printing on the rough side of the film.  If you are thinking sandpaper or emery cloth rough, you will be in for a surprise, and distinguishing the ‘rough’ from the smooth side is quite a trick.

I have an Epson R2400 printer, so Ron’s instructions for  the Epson 3800 translate a bit different to my printer, but they are easily enough adapted.  I cut the OHP film in half and printed the step table pictured above, on an 5.5×8.5 inch sheet, to the settings Ron recommended.  The OHP film came out looking beautifully.  I was clever enough to print the salient printer settings  onto the film…..What you see above is the negative of the step table, but not yet reversed.  The step table or any digital negative must be ‘flipped’ before printing in order to have it coming out oriented the same as the original photo.  That’s because the contact print is made with the printed film surface in contact with the emulsion side of the paper.

Stay tuned for test prints and correction curve attempts.

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Today’s Cyanotype

December 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Cyanotype contact print on Arches Cover, cp – from digital negative and Canon G10

This looks fairly close to what the actual print looks like. In the print the blue is a bit darker – at least as I see it on my monitor.

I made the negative last night, using Arista OHP film, and Dan Burkholder’s instruction for “Using a Color Table to Make a Negative.” That’s a pretty ‘primitive’ method by today’s standards, but I am going to stick with it for a little while, till I get a better print. I also applied a correction curve to the color table conversion. In this case, the dark areas of the negative [the print's highlights] were too dark. I adjusted the curve to correct for this, and if the sun is out tomorrow, which it is not forecast to be, I am going to give it another try.
If you are interested, stay tuned.

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“Umbrella with Legs”

November 30, 2009 · 4 Comments

35mm – Neopan 1600, converted to digital negative, Cyanotype print on Arches Cover. Natural north window light.
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When I was home, in CK for Thanksgiving, I went through some of my print files and came across this small Cyanotype – it’s about 3×5 inches, on Arches Cover, mounted on mat board with a reverse bevel. This reminded me that I was actually getting to be pretty good making digital negatives and then contact printing them as Cyanotypes, and that was with the old Epson Stylus C64 printer. So now, that I have all my supplies gathered again, the Arista OHP arrived while I was gone, I am determined to get back to making good Cyanotype prints. Much to my sorrow I discovered that Printing Out Paper [POP] seems to be no longer available, it was one of the printing techniques that I wanted to take up again too.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: art · cedar key · cyanotype · digital · film photography
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Of Rainer Maria Rilke, David Byrne, terrifying angles, bicycles & some of my photos.

November 17, 2009 · 2 Comments

I have posted this previously, but just reworked it, and I like this better than previous prints. The photo belongs to my, “Every Angel is Terrifying” portfolio.
The portfolio title is a line from Rilke’s ‘Duino Elegies’ which I translated as follows:

“Who, if I screamed, would hear me among the angels?
and even if one of them would press me suddenly against her breast:
I would be annihilated by her overwhelming splendor.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of the horrific,
which we are only able to bear in passing,
as it threatens to obliterate us. Each and every angel is terrifying.”
www.amazon.com/Duino-Elegies-Rainer-Maria-Rilke/dp/086547…

I just read David Byrne’s new book, “Bicycle Diaries” – which is fantastic. And in a brief paragraph he talks about Rilke. This quote is actually from his blog, I could not find the book quote, since I had to take the book back to the library this morning.
www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Diaries-David-Byrne/dp/0670021148/…

Anyhow, he says, “Matthias [a German artist with whom he was having a conversation] said beauty – being ephemeral, evanescent and impermanent – reminds us of death. I would have never put an equal sign between the two myself – seems overly Romantic a la Rilke again, but I see his point. The morbidity of beauty. Huh.”
http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

→ 2 CommentsCategories: black & white · film photography · photography · portrait
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Cyanotype – getting closer

November 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

bestcyanotype neg

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Messing around with trying to get a good digital negative for my Cyanotype prints, I used Dan Burkholder’s Photoshop Layer Template [the old version, he has a newer one for sale on his web site], and made a digital contact sheet, using four different negatives.  The one that looked the best was produced using the layer circled above in the screen shot.

So, now I just need to get some more Pictoria OHP and see how that will work, since they apparently changed the specs of the stuff since I last bought it.

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Cyanotypes & Digital negatives

November 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Suwannee Dawn[the color is a little off in this, its not quite as purple]

I have been working on and off with digital negatives for quite some time now, making contact prints on enlarging paper and Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown prints on Arches paper.  However, I have not pursued this consistently enough to really get good at it.  When we moved up here, it seriously disrupted my working in the darkroom. Almost a year ago I did a couple of Cyanotype prints and wrote about it on this blog.

For a whole lot of reasons it wasn’t till today that I did another print.  Three days ago I coated some Arches Cover paper with Cyanotype and put it in a cardboard box to dry.  The next day, when I wanted to print there was no sun, and the day after, I could not find my contact printing frame.  So, finally today Alexandria found the printing frame for me, and the sun was out.  However, by now, the coating on the paper had deteriorated somewhat, plus I had not been precise enough in applying the emulsion, so the prints left a lot to be desired.

I did a test print, and a couple of full prints.  I know from experience that sun exposure for my prints is about 3 to 4 minutes in the full sun, and they came out ok, but since I keep insisting on using cold pressed paper, the surface is a bit rough.  Which I really like at times, but it does not work too well for this image.

20091104_1767[exposing the image in the sun]

20091104_1769[washing in the kitchen sink]

20091104_1773[digital negatives and prints]

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Rodney Smith

November 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

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If there is one photographer whom I have admired and tried to emulate over the years, it is Rodney Smith.  I never knew much about him except that when I ran across photos in magazines that really resonated with me, it more often then not turned out to be an image by Smith.  When I read about his working methods which apparently involved arriving on the set by himself with one camera, no lights and a bunch of film stuck in his pockets, I was totally smitten.

To my great delight I ran across his blog yesterday.  I had no idea that he was maintaining  one.  It is titled “The End Starts Here.” Like his photographs, it is extremely elegant, witty, honest, and to me totally fascinating.  It blows my mind that there are hardly any comments on his posts, indicating that the number of comments does not equate to anything, certainly does not reflect the quality of the work.

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Island Hotel, Cedar Key

October 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I just returned from an overnight trip to Cedar Key.  It was a great visit.  The weather was perfect, in the 60’s and sunny.  I really like the way my street now looks with the new sidewalks, downright ‘upscale.’  That together with the wonderful board walk going out to the little park behind the cemetery, has really improved the neighborhood.  Now there are also two coffee shops in town.  Unfortunately I have not had a chance to try them, but it is a delight to know they are there. One of them is in ‘The Barefoot Artist” gallery, right on the main street, with tables out front and in the side yard.  I will take some pictures next time I am there, and post them.

This morning, with Mike Leiner’s generous help I was able to hang prints of the below images in the Island Hotel. I am delighted to have them up there, and really appreciate that the owners, Stanley and Anyd Bair are so willing to let us exhibit in their great dining room.

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“Suwannee Dawn & the Tarnished Mirror”

[Pigment ink print]

0901a-pantoned

“Southern Cross”

[Pigment ink print on silver leaf]

IMG_0773a“Oyster Planting”

[Pigment ink print on silver leaf]

openingDining Room – Island Hotel

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WaterWomen, Bicycle Diaries & The Rings of Saturn

October 24, 2009 · 2 Comments

coverwwbookCreative spurts come in wondrous ways. This morning I stopped by the Leon County Library to pick up  David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries which I had requested.  I was totally intrigued by the book when I read that he had been riding his bicycle literally, all over the world.  In the acknowledgment to the book he mentions W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of  Saturn as an inspiration. And also that he had started to blog his travel and tour diary. Somehow this got me to thinking of my WaterWomen ‘book to be’ and that I simply must finish putting it together.

So, now I am going out on a limb once more by blogging about it, and posting screen shots from the layout.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Florida · black & white · book · cedar key · clam farming · documentary · film photography · fl 32625 · photography · publishing on demand · waterwomen
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“Mirror, mirror on the wall…”

October 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment

20090701_sd_0374Hmm, on my screen the image comes out a bit green, when I click on it to go to the silghtly bigger version, it looks better.

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New web site

October 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment

websitenewHere is a link to the new website I am developing.  I would appreciate it if you could take a look and give me feed-back.

Warning: It changes from day to day.

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“I’m afraid it means leaving you…”

October 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

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Another of my text/photo images – see post below.

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v3 Tallahassee Pecha Kucha Night

October 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

1998project

This coming Thursday we will have our ‘volume 3′ Pecha Kucha Night at the 621 Gallery in Tallahassee.
I’ll be talking about my highway 19/98 project, and here is the slide show that will accompany the talk.

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“…a moment of doubt”

October 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

"...a moment of doubt"

I have not worked with words on photographs in a long time.  Usually when I do it, I get a so/so feedback to the effect that the words in the image mess up the photo.  However, when I go back to them after they have been filed away for some time, I still like them.  Usually what I do, as I did in this case, is randomly open a book that is laying on my desk and scan the page to see if I can find a phrase that I think applies.

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Fire Ants

September 30, 2009 · 4 Comments

fireantsposterweb

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This morning I took down the work I had on display at the ‘Fire Ants Gallery”. The gallery is tucked away in the far corner of Tallahassee’s funky art quarter better known as ‘Railroad Square.’ Jonathan Markham runs the gallery and he invited me to show some of my work. The high point was the opening night which was on September’s ‘First Friday.’ There was a good crowd at the square and many of them came through Jonathan’s gallery, although it is so tucked away in a corner, that – with vans parked in front of it, it is hardly visible.

Taking down the work was actually pleasurable since the show had looked good. Alexandria had done a fantastic job of hanging it, and I had some of my favorite pieces up. In November I will probably be able to hang a few of my photos again. Looking forward to it. In the meantime, some of the work is going to go to Cedar Key, where a bunch of us have our work up in the dining room of the historic Island Hotel.

islandhotel

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Florida · Suwanee Dawn · Tallahassee · art · black & white · cedar key · color photography · digital · documentary · film photography · photography · silver leaf · tarnished mirror · waterwomen

Huckleberrey’s

August 31, 2009 · 1 Comment

HuckleberryPanorama
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This morning, on my way back from Cedar Key, I finally got a chance to stop and get breakfast at Huckleberry’s in Fanning Springs. There is a photo of the outside of Huckleberry’s in a post below.
An egg, bacon, grits and a piece of toast were $2.45. It all was served very informally in a styrofoam container, and I had a choice of sitting inside in the air-conditioning, or outside in the screened in area. Since the inside looked more interesting, I sat there, on a counter with the prominently displayed ‘Concealed Weapon Permit” number of, I presume the owner.
On the way out, I gave a copy of the outside, panorama print to the cashier, hoping to stop by again, and do some more photos.

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New ‘Bodice Ripper’ Cover

July 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment

intheshowercoverHere is my new design for the next ‘Bodice Ripper’ virtual book cover.  I should get the whole image done this weekend.  Designing these is more fun than I thought.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Bodice Ripper · Suwanee Dawn · art · book · color photography · digital · photography

Digital-Photo-What??????

July 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

One reason I started this blog was that I wanted a place to write down and clarify my thoughts about digital photography.  I specifically addressed the topic a couple of times, here, and here.

Just now, I ran across a great post by Ctein, whose work and writing I have greatly admired and valued over the years.  If you are interested in the subject, it is well worth reading:

“Picture Postcards?!?

By Ctein

You want to be sitting down for this one.

I’ve made pretty clear my heartfelt belief that the future will lie in informational optics and computational photography and that photographic technology will end up looking almost unimaginably different from what we’ve been using for 150 years.

But, here’s something I didn’t imagine, and sure wasn’t expecting it now. On the unbelievable/cool scale, it’s definitely a 10. We might even have to write an 11 on the dial. For your edification and amazement, two references:

MIT develops camera-like fabric

Exploiting Collective Effects of Multiple Optoelectronic Devices Integrated in a Single Fiber

Partial Abstract: “We show that a tandem arrangement of subwavelength photodetecting devices integrated in a single fiber enables the extraction of information on the direction, wavelength, and potentially even color of incident radiation over a wide spectral range in the visible regime. Finally, we fabricated a 0.1 square meter single plane fiber assembly which uses polychromatic illumination to extract images without the use of a lens, representing an important step toward ambient light imaging fabrics.”

Simple  description: It’s a fabric, woven out of light-sensitive fibers,  that can make a photograph. All by itself. No lens. No camera. No nuthin’.

(Well, it is backed by a honking big load of computing. In 10 years, that will all be on a chip.)

Frankly, I didn’t want to pay $30 to download the whole paper, but the abstract tells me enough to let me reverse-engineer the basic idea.

Normal, everyday light, on the sub-wavelength scale, can interfere with itself; it acts like a well ordered set of waves. The interference patterns depend on both the wavelength and the direction the photons are coming from. Take Newton rings, for example. Get two shiny surfaces really close to each other, and you’ll see bands of bright and dark colors.

Newton rings tell us a lot about the light that creates them. That pattern depends on the distance the light has to travel between the surfaces, measured in wavelengths. The shorter the wavelength, the closer the bands appear together. The shallower the angle of incidence, the farther apart the bands appear. In other words, that pattern of light and dark bands contains information about the direction the light is coming from and/or its wavelength.

That, I think, is the physics behind the fabric: It’s looking at the interference patterns within fibers, à la Newton rings, and from that, one can extract information about where the photons are coming from and what they’re like.

Which is just what a conventional camera lens and film/sensor does.

I can’t say how far this particular technology could be pushed; I just don’t know.

But just imagine…

It looks kind of like a Polaroid SX 70 print. Hold it up in front of you,  grasping it by the lower right corner. An image of the scene the print “back” is facing appears on the side that you’re looking at. Squeeze the corner between your thumb and forefinger, and the print freezes the image.

Heck, let’s make the lower left corner a zoom control. There’s no reason we should be hobbled by a fixed “focal length” in our magic print; it’s all in the number crunching. Also, the print doesn’t “fix” the image until you squeeze the corner two times rapidly. Then it’s permanent. Otherwise, you can reuse the print, until you get a photograph you want to keep.

I told you you wanted to be sitting down for this one.

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Great Street Portrait Video from Wired

July 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment

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“Suwanee Dawn – Bodice Ripper”

July 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment


DesperateDuchessesweb
Recently I had a great photo session with my friend “Suwanee Dawn.” Going over the photos later, I realized that some of them would look great as cover illustration on Romance novels. So, I went to the library and got several well thumbed copies, and just started on transforming them, using images from the photo session. So, here is my first go at my new “Suwanee Dawn – Bodice Ripper” portfolio.

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Portraits with MB

June 8, 2009 · 2 Comments

Usually I never post this many images from a single session. I am making an exception here because they are all interesting, and I would love to get everybody’s feed-back.

You will probably notice that there is quite a repetition of photos here – I am after figuring out which looks work with which images.

Neither MB nor I were much interested in coming away from the session with ‘regular’ portraits.

We are both interested in images that speak more to the mood and different ‘atmosphere’ than those that are formal portraits. So, some of them are a bit ‘over-the top’ and don’t look like MB, nevertheless, they are still here – just a side of her that perhaps we don’t often see.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Tallahassee · art · cedar key · digital · photography · portrait

Ovation TV | Sally Mann: What Remains

June 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

sallymann

Here is a wonderful video about Sally Mann working with Collodion.

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“WaterWomen Oyster Planting” – Silver Leaf

May 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment

IMG_0773a

{click on image to see the sharper version}

This is another inkjet on silver leaf print. The original is a 35mm negative scanned and printed on silver leaf on acrylic paint and watercolor paper. The paper is 13×20 inches. Too big to scan, so this is a digital photo of the finished print. It fairly well approximates the look of the print. However, since it is on silver leaf it has a lot of reflection, depending on where and how it is viewed.

I am learning to appreciate the irregularity of the print, and its marks from the process.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Florida · art · black & white · cedar key · documentary · film photography · fl 32625 · photography · silver leaf · waterwomen

One for Silver Leaf

May 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

"Tarnished Mirror - Suwannee Dawn"I reworked this “Tarnished Mirror” image [see previous post] to be printed on silver leaf.  What I would really like to do is print on silver leaf or silver acrylic ground on Arches cover, black.  Will have to give that a try. I think this one is actually a bit better than the original.

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Printing on Gold & Silver Leaf

May 6, 2009 · 2 Comments

img_0748webHere are three more digital prints on gold and silver leaf.  Photographing these so they truly reproduce the way the prints look, is something I have not been able to pull off.  These are fairly close, but I feel they still look much better and interesting  in ‘real life.’
They are all on 13×20 inch watercolor paper, with the metal leaf adhered to a ground of acrylic paint.

The top one is from a Holga panorama, the bottom left one from a 35 mm black and white negative, and the gold leaf one from three merged digital layers.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Florida · Holga · art · black & white · clam farming · digital · documentary · film photography · photography
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