#1 Fish baby

In the previous post I had mentioned that these fish baby (a working title) images are a series of 21 scanned collages.  This is image #1... meaning this was the first thing that i pulled together out of a pile of cut up fish eyes, a folded baby's head and an old photo from madrid.


No editing here at all.  As often happens when I'm doing a series, the first image gets every possible edit thrown at it... to see what options work and don't work to make it more than what you see below.

scan 1

Here are a bunch of results... really the babies of the image above.  First the mirrored versions.

I do like the contrast on the B& W ones here.  Two with a pop filter below

Last two... closely related versions and my favorites.  I especially like the egg yoke quality of the eye on the last one. while the sea foam of the first is striking too.

enjoy

Mirroring the strange

Here is a good example of what mirroring does to my already already strange creations.


From the fish baby series seen in the last post.  First: #19 more or less as it was when originally scanned. As I did 21 total of this type: a folded baby's head with a combination of fish eyes/parts ... I had pretty much exhausted the more odd/creative/spontaneous options.
So by this time was matching up the most obvious face like elements... still effective though.


You can see the tape used to pin the thing down... above the ear on the white triangle. 

#19

Mirrored in the obvious way... to create a creature with two eyes.  Cropped here so the shoulders are less prominent as well as in landscape rather than portrait mode.. which also widens the head.

Now mirrored the other way... a whole freakier kind of beast.  While you lose a mouth.. while gaining an eye in the image above the loss of eyes, the double nose, a hungry set of fang like teeth... create a very different impact below.

Appetite

Silent or Silenced?

Silent or Silenced?

Here are four of the thirty images I had printed yesterday.  All will end up in a collage at some point.  Think they work well as a set... and all on their own.  It's all in the eyes as they have no mouths to speak.

These were fun to create.  A combination of one cut and folded baby's head (yes... a theme of mine) combined with fish eyes, fish parts (check out the teeth on the side of the head of this last one) then mirrored.  The background is a close up of an old pushcart found in Madrid which creates both the neck and a semi neutral landscape-like background.


I created and scanned 21 separate collages over two days in december.  From there I have edited alternate versions of these 21 for a grand total of 600 separate images.  That's the problem (or benefit) of creating something you like and that's visually exciting... the desire (or compulsion) to see just how far that image can be stretched/distorted/focused/altered until it loses whatever the original.. AHA.. impulse.  That made it exciting and worthwhile to manipulate in the first place. 


In many cases the base image often ends up being less exciting (or visually charged/ potent) than the iterations it spawned.  Regardless, after a month or two away from the actual editing process it's daunting to even look at the myriad fish babies I've created...and to select which to print.  In this case I focused on the mirrored faces and the tension embedded in the eyes... combined with a lack of mouth to further express what the eyes say.  It seems to ramp up the tension of their basic strangeness even further.
ENJOY

Ancient images

Well.. it says it so no title is necessary

Beauty

Here are two of my oldest... and favorite images.  The first; the back of a traffic sign shot somewhere in downtown MPLS 7+ years ago.  Have never seen a road sign since that contains the letters B & E in this order.  I love it for it's message as well as the scratches and decay from use.  


The second.. from Kyoto Japan 9+ years ago.  Per a friend, this is the japanese kanji for beauty.  The symbol/word is raised 1/2 an inch above the surface. In both cases the color has been pushed into the orange/scarlet range from the base image ... which in both cases was a dull metallic rust-ish color.  Saturate one color and they all come along for the ride.

And now for something completely different

Just hit play

Mutant Nomi

 Mutant in formal wear

An oddity from a series I've done on  claus Nomi

Olmec inspiration

Jaguar Babies

Some context or at least a point of resonance between my king babies and the real world... arts & culture wise.  A couple snaps from the museum Amparo, Puebla MX.  These are jaguar babies from the Olmec civilization.  Can't say there is a direct line between these two and what I do with distorting faces... however I was taken with these two enough to take the pic.

Sacred heart of king baby

Sacred heart of king baby... Here is a good example of the surprising elements thrown up in the editing process.  First: a couple examples of the flaming sacred heart of jesus.  Per wikipedia: a symbols of christ's love and devotion to mankind.  I do love the sexy and soulful JC of these two images.  what's with the forked beard however?

My versions of the sacred heart... From ...and going to ... a very different place.
As I was editing these my technique made the tongue more prominent as the mouth got bigger.  A little technical wizardry and the tongue started to look like it was on fire.


Here the sacred heart is held in the mouth of the king baby.  The expression, sly and dangerous with not a hint of love or devotion.  Will the king baby eat the heart of mankind?

In the world of king baby it's everyone for themselves and power resides in the ability to crush those weaker.  Me and mine and now. King Baby as the eaters of hope and love.

two backgrounds

Here are two future background images... will eventually have a face/portrait attached.  I think both of these have some possibilities as a result of mirroring/cropping the original image.

some baroque elegance

A ghost ship or tower?

Four from this week

Here are four images all processed/edited over the last few days.  All these have dark backgrounds which i think adds to the drama, heightens the emotional read of the image.
Two portraits and two backgrounds.

angel sitting on the toilet

enjoy

Yellow Elvis: close

Another version of yellow elvis... a close up this time

close elvii

bang

Bang

This floated to the top of the photo pile today... meaning I was looking at a folder of old images and this one caught my eye.  I have so many photos.... 18,800 as of today's count, that I can lose track as to what I have if I haven't been reworking an image from that folder for awhile.

Even worse is trying to find a specific image in this virtual pile.   anyway  Bang.

Shot in Zacatecas Mexico.  A sticker on a traffic sign that someone had partially peeled off.  Then altered from the original, here black & white.

100 versions of Snappy Poo

100 versions

To contrast from my last post... here is an image taken most likely on the same day as the eye floating in yellow.  This one has spawned close to 100 versions.

Snappy poo

A mash up of multiple posters and graffiti on a dark metal door.  An example of the detritus of an international party city that's not much seen anymore as gentrification and commodification has cleaned this up in most parts of the world.  The piling of images + decay to create a juxtaposition... that creates a tension/connection that is essentially random.  Beautiful Decay.   anyway....

I have gone to town on this image.... mostly by mirroring/bulge and dent/ altering color/etc.

here are some examples of the 100 babies of snappy poo.  The head becomes eyes...the mouth emerges from torn paper.

black & white menace

A couple more in a pop style

A long version in colors I rarely use: pink and green

And a couple more.  I find it interesting how the emotion conveyed changes from version to version.

Only one

Floating eye

Here is an image... taken seven + years ago in Amsterdam.  A small detail of a hood of a car... well really a a 1950's car/truck/delivery van kind of thing.  A very basic bench seat with a small cargo area in back.  I found it one morning, parked/dumped/abandoned half on the sidewalk and tilting toward a canal.  Painted yellow submarine a-la the Beatles it was a surreal site all on it's own.  As I shoot macro (close ups) I recall crawling/hanging over it looking for details that popped for me.

One tricky aspect of shooting close is depth of field, or what's in focus and what's not.  

To get it all in focus, when the camera is 6-12 inches away, means the lens needs to be parallel/ perpendicular/etc with the object.  For this image I had to climb up on the railing over the canal to get some height and then lean over the hood of the car... which was tipped over the canal. 

Found this eye like spot and the little mouth below it. This, most likely, is earlier painted versions of the car bleeding thru the worn and scratched yellow top coat. 

Became frantic to capture it and it was an absolute bitch to photograph

This is close to what it looked like 'in the flesh' saturated just a little bit.  I notice it's more out of focus on the left side and there is a bit of sunlight reflected (looks white) on the lower right. 

Add caption

It's a perfect example of what I was looking for at the time.  A random act of man and nature, entropy/wear/decay that coughs up a bit of beauty or strangeness.  I may have taken 5-6 

shots of the car in total.  Only this one made the conversion from film to digital, PC to MAC. It's also the only version... as anything I try to do to it does not make it better or more interesting.

Tao Superhero

Here is the original collage.  I love this little guy; holy blue with his little wings and enormous 3rd eye.  I like the alternate versions even more.  Crisper with fewer colors and the face easier to read.

Yellow Elvis: all shook up

Yellow Elvis in a Volcano

One of my all time favorite images is the face in this collage:  yellow elvis.  Found on the streets of Madrid many years ago.  Background is a very close detail of a light fixture/art piece at MOMA.


The next:  must preface this by saying I love strong color; lush and dripping to the edge of nausea color.  My favorite is a mossy olive gold heavily seen in this version.

Moss Elvis

Some kind of saint?

Two more in reverse order.  The original collage is the second image

collage clean up

Perhaps some background on my process w/ collage and then some examples.

First of all I print way too many pictures.  After all the digital work I want to hold something real in my hands, check how certain edits look in real life. Some I sell or gift away while the rest sit in drifts of white envelopes on my living room floor. 100's and 100's of photos.

Occasionally I pull them ALL out and start matching backgrounds to faces.   Backgrounds are 11 x 14, the portrait is hand cut from an 8 x 10.  For my last batch I used a forced choice method.... half because I don't think that far ahead, half because I want the random aha chance factor in the work.  Glue them together .... then re-scan them back to digital.  Then re edit to clean up finger prints, dust, etc.  As a part of the re editing I can make alternate (and often I think better) versions of the original collaged work.

A quick note on editing: I may have worked on the same image or a version of that image 10 times over the course of 4-5 years.  Many of my base photos have 20+ different versions.

One of my favorite backgrounds...old photo of train graffiti with the colors inverted... back to white, etc.  The flaming torso is a vastly blown up pic of a boy jumping.

thunder storm

Storm alternate

The alternate version.  A little less florid and also more distinct, more menace?