So there I am in the darkroom, having worked for 8 hours or so, I kept making tiny mistakes on the photograph I was printing ( Girl on Bicycle Klong Toey Slum). I was making 16x20 prints on Ilford warm tone paper, the print involved 15 steps of burning/dodging, along with the normal bleaching and toning. The work involved 2 burning masks along with small area burns, and 3 dodges of facial and hand areas. I was getting pretty darn tired and I had to come to work tonight to do my 12 hour night shift. I was down to 6 hours sleep before the night shift, I did not have the print yet and needed to make 3 more attempts. I felt like quiting but ended up thinking "What would Eugene Smith do, quit or keep going?"
I kept going, ended up with 4 hours sleep.
The print still might not be up to snuff, I am letting them dry before making the final assessment, might have to reprint this photograph next week off. I only have 1 more week off of printing left, am only partially done, need to really focus.
Will use the week of May 30th to finish the framing and get the prints to the gallery so they can be hung on time for the June 3rd show.
Debating whether I should show the color sex worker head portraits from Thailand (2010) or the color brothel potraits from Cambodia (2003).
Girl On A Bicycle Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok Thailand 2010
