Play of Shadows Series:
Week 1
by Dan Zimmerman
For Work-in-Progress Month, I’m using as a departure point a photo that I took in the kitchen with my first digital camera and a tripod. I hadn’t shaved in several days and the idea was to capture the ‘low landscape’ that had grown on my face. I was especially pleased with the play of shadows on the right side, and the swing of the fold in my shirt. I also really liked the window and the quality of the light which brings everything into such satisfying relief.
For this series, I’m interested in exploring as many combinations of photography, drawing/painting, computers, and the great outdoors that I can come up with, using the above photo as the unifying theme.
My first experiment was to lift the original photo out of its kitchen-context and set against a detail of one of my branch-pictures. I start these branch-pictures outside, in my backyard. I place branches, leaves and sticks on the canvas and use alternating runs of black or white spray-paint to produce unexpected results (these results feel very mysterious to me, much like to the old black & white movies I’ve always been fond of. It’s my own brand of Sfumato, or chiaroscuro you might say.) After I finish with the spray-paint, I bring the canvas inside to work on it further by applying color or more drawing. I also sometimes project photos of trees onto the picture and merge these images onto the developing composite.
I combined the initial kitchen portrait with the branch-picture in Photoshop. I had to zoom in close so I could erase around the hairs and retain the stubble look. I still haven’t learned how to make ‘areas’ transparent, so I just laboriously erase everything I don’t want in the layer (can anyone out there release my inner Photoshop nerd?)
Typically I go back and forth between “accident” and “intention”. I have become very bored with my own “skills”. So, the work is an ongoing effort to court surprise, and be ready to respond to it.
Next week I’ll try to do something different with the picture…
November 14th, 2007 at 4:49 am
I would like to know how I can buy CDs of two old cassettes I’ve worn out by Dan: STAND BY NIGHT and SUBTERRANEAN CAFE. Also, I’d like to buy anything else Dan has produced since then, though it’s hard to believe whatever it is could be an improvement on these classics.
Hap