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Dr. Hsieh on The Boundaries of Art

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Jonathan13

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How did you create the flower?

 

I created it using the methods that I mentioned in the first post: orthographic masking, projection and in-camera masking, negative/positive film alignment, multiple exposures, time exposures, color, diffusion and distortion filters, and selective dodging and burning.

 

The petals are just a blast of light shot through a very wide lens on chrome film, and then reshot as double exposures at severe angles onto another piece of chrome film. I put that on a light table and reshot it eight times while rotating the camera 45 degrees between each exposure. I did that twice so as to get two sets of eight. I then made a high-contrast negative and a high contrast positive copy of those two eight-set chromes so that I would have a knock-out (the high-contrast positive) and highlight/shadow plate, which was created by taking slightly unfocused shots on chrome of the high-contrast negative copies.

 

I then sandwiched the second eight-set chrome with the unfocused shadow chrome from the first eight-set, as well as with second eight-set's knock-out, and I punched the entire sandwich with holes to match registration pins (a method of aligning multiple exposures on a light table). I exposed that onto a new piece of chrome, then covered the sandwich with the shadow chrome made from the first eight-set's high-contrast copy, slid it slightly upward, and then exposed the new chrome once again to achieve the highlights. I removed that sandwich from the light table and repeated the same double exposure process with the first eight-set sandwiched with its knock-out positive.

 

The flower's anther was created pretty much in the same way, but it began with two exposures of light on very grainy film which was then reshot on high-contrast film.

 

The stem was just a time exposure streak made by a random panning of the camera while aimed at a light.

 

Once I had the petals on a chrome, the stem on another, and the anther on another, I combined all three using the sandwich/knockout method described above, along with additional pops of the strobe and colored gels to achieve the coloration as well as the background fade. Each plate exposure on this final chrome also had an accompanying diffusion exposure, which was a pop of the strobes with a steel-wool scratched piece of glass placed over the lens.

 

J

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That's fascinating. How did you learn to implement these techniques in such a way?

 

I like the photo. It's very striking with it's calm and austerity, and the soft but strong glow around the petals. I bet it looks fantastic in a large print.

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  • 3 weeks later...

That's fascinating. How did you learn to implement these techniques in such a way?

I had read a few books and articles on special effects photography, including a magazine piece about some of the techniques that Lucasfilm/ILM had used on the original Star Wars film. I took that info and just began creatively experimenting with everything from 35mm cameras to room-sized stat cameras, and every type of film that I could get my hands on.

I like the photo. It's very striking with it's calm and austerity, and the soft but strong glow around the petals. I bet it looks fantastic in a large print.

Thank you. I'm glad that you like it.

J

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