04/08/13: Our Six Month Anniversary!

Location: 23^rd and South vicinity, Philadelphia

Print size: 11.5” x 17”

Camera: Canonet QL 17

Film: Tri-X @ISO 200

Develop: HC110, 1:49, 7min @68F

Scan: Epson V500

Print: Epson 3880/ Piezographic K7 Warm-Neutral Inks/ Moab Lasal

Come celebrate the first half year of The Concrete Muse! A show of small prints will be opening up this Saturday, the 13^th from 6-9 pm at Frame Fatale, 1813 E. Passyunk in Philadelphia. This is a chance to see what the work looks like “live” and exquisitely framed, albeit on a more diminutive scale (this week's image will be featured in the display window at full size) and to pick up some ready-to-hang art for what it would cost to have it matted and framed-- in other words: cheap! More importantly, this will help support the project as it goes into its next half year! 

I believe that longevity is a big component of creative success. Too many projects get abandoned without ever being pushed to the edge IMHO. The Concrete Muse is six months old this week and it feels like it’s jut beginning. Going back to film and working largely with 35mm in a hybrid film/digital printing set up is an education in the best sense of the phrase. My overall methodology is continually changing and refining, but more importantly, new things keep on entering my field of vision. This seriously appeals to the part of me that’s a real learning junkie and loves to tinker. 

This shot was taken last summer somewhere in my immediate neighborhood. My guess is I grabbed it quickly. The Canonet QL17, often described as “the poor man’s Leica” (I paid $40 in 1994) is very good for shooting on-the-fly. It wasn’t until I got into the printmaking that I realized there was a person looking out as well as the canine. It required three separate negative scans that were then put together in Photoshop.  The combination of the white dog and the very dark background, printed on the lower-contrast paper I use for working proofs (Moab Lasal), made this a particularly thorny printing problem.