Week one of winter quarter classes is in the books. Another 101 class and another photogram demonstration. I think this just might be my favorite one. The balance of large blocky gray shapes with the thin graceful lines of white that remind me of my attempts to learn the rules of Ikebana are very satisfying to me. The objects were selected randomly between 8am and the start of class at 8:30am. The subconscious seems to do all the heavily lifting as I just intuitively selected and played with the materials in the darkroom.
I always start a 101 class with photograms because it is an opportunity to grapple with composition and to learn the importance of value in creating the illusion of depth and dimension. The white elements on this image were on the bottom and the large gray leaf was actually on top. The process starts with confronting the blank canvas of a single sheet of 5×7 photo paper and placing the botanicals within that frame. I had already demonstrating how to make a gray scale step wedge and knew that I had a total of 10 seconds to work with to go from pure white to pure black. The two gray values I chose required 2 and 4 seconds. To make this image I placed the leaves on the paper and layed the large sheep’s ear leaf on top of the delicate vines. I then carefully laid a smaller sheep’s ear leaf next to the larger one as if they were from the same branch. I did the math of subtracting 4 seconds from 10 to know that I could expose the whole arrangement for 6 seconds, then remove the largest leaf and make an exposure for 2 seconds and finally remove the small leaf for another 2 seconds. The total was 10 and where the large leafe had been was exposed for 4 seconds total. It is wonderful to watch students gasp as they witness the gray leaf that was stacked on top seemingly magically recede into the background. I love returning to the darkroom for this beginner lesson in design. It is a very Zen experience and after 37 years in the darkroom there is just so much more to learn.
