Tuesday, December 30, 2014

One More Done

I really pushed myself today, I was able to make a show print on a work day. I printed the mother feeding her baby negative. I have 5 prints floating in the wash right now, 4 of which I think have the possibility to be the exhibition print. Two photos were made at filter 2 and two were made at filter 2 1/2.

For me the beauty of documentary photography is the people your allowed to photograph. To show a bit of their humanity in a photograph is exciting. Its the people, the people, the people. To be allowed into their worlds is an exciting thing, like Salgado says its a gift. Being part of their lives, spending time in their families, hearing their stories, its all great stuff.

The photo I made today I think tells an important story. It is a simple and straight forward composition that shows the love a mother has for her child. Sometimes I think it's to easy to get carried away with trying to only compose vividly and only shooting in awesome light, sometimes when your so focused on that stuff, you miss the substance of your subject. It can become a style over the true heart of the subject thing. The people are what matters and sometimes telling their story is more important even thou it might be in a less visually dramatic. Let the subjects eyes, expressions, their souls communicate the photos story.

Anyway am happy I did this print, I think I have only one more shot to do for the dump part of the exhibition plus any reprints. I still want to make a shot of a brother and sister cooking breakfast outside their dump home, then I will be done the dump pics. I have already done a bit of testing and cut the mask for this neg so hopefully I can get it done in one darkroom printing session.

I will have to move onto the final dad shots next week. Then the final printing process of toning, washing and spotting plus framing of all 19-21 prints and I will be done. I have just over 1 month left to complete this all. Things are coming together but I still have lots of work to do.