One Day

Oct 15, 2015 / Photography

The new work is slowly coming together! I’m getting it ready for the photoNOLA portfolio review in New Orleans December 10-13, 2015. I therefore have about 1.5 months left. As I mentioned in a previous essay, setting a deadline is good: it makes you focus on what really has to be done. And I have a lot to do, but I’m excited all the same. It will be my first time going to this annual photography festival.

The new work is entitled, One Day. That’s part II of the A Million Suns (AMS) trilogy. Last weekend, I nailed down how this new work will look. I’m done experimenting with print size, image construction, and color.

[Confused look].

Color?

Yes. Color. If you were to compare prints from the first series to this new one, the blue is, I’m not sure what to call it, more metallic, more subdued. There’s also a very slight tinge of yellow and green. The new prints are toned, using a paint brush, with regular washing soda. You could say I paint over these images.

The print size is also slightly bigger at 20 inches on the long edge, whereas the previous work was 17 inches. The larger size suits the new work. The presence of the image, especially for these thin elongated prints like the one above, is more substantial and commanding.

Another evolution in my work is in image construction. The idea of reality being composed of layers, the present and the future, for exampleis approached differently in this work. Whereas before I printed on one piece of paper, this time, I’m printing on separate pieces of fine art paper and gluing them together. The collage layers are very important to me. It is integral to the work’s meaning. I’m also fascinated by the edges of things. In this new work, you can really see edges: where one image ends and the other begins. The physical print has depth, which contributes to the photograph’s meaning.

Lastly, I continue to explore sequential storytelling as one would find in comic books and graphic novels and combining that with the fine art photograph. I really love exploring this contradiction and this fusion.

It is interesting to see the evolution of this work. I am pretty excited about it. I will be posting more of the new series closer to photoNOLA. Stay tuned.