Friday, July 31, 2015

Working On Dad Prints, Hard To Do

Today after my security night shift I did the secondary printing on 2 photos of my father. Both photos were shot near the end of his life, in the last 2 weeks. One picture is of him in pain, the other is the eye in barred light photogragh. Damn hard to print these, I could not look too long at the prints or I would start to tear up. Try bleaching, fixing, hypo clearing and toning a print, WITHOUT looking at it!

Anyway it had to be done so I did it, a sad morning. I have a color photograph of dads smiling face over my darkroom sink, me and him standing side by side on our shared birthday, and in the the toner tray print he is hours from his death. Tough shit, will have to dry, flatten, spot and frame these images yet, it will not be fun. One of the print is do next Friday by 4pm at the VAA gallery. Need to get this work done, I promised the galleries I would get the photos there on time. I also want dad's voice to be heard again through the work. He continues to live in through this difficult series.

These photos are for 2 different exhibitions, one is for the Open Digital 2015 at the Calgary and Edmonton Jubilee Auditoriums, two others are for a large show of around 30 prints at the Akokiniskway Gallery in Rosebud Alberta.

3 of the 7 prints I worked on today drying on screens