Every Start

The procedure is the same, no matter the materials I begin with a proof, a test. From film or sensor, rolls or sheets. It was how I began, it is how I work now.

From the ‘index’ of images come the next round. In this project these small prints will be cut apart so that multiple edits can be made.

Then, the decision: is more needed? It usually is. In ongoing long-term projects the end is never found. At some point, it is best to consider the closing will never come.

Make, select, edit; endlessly, or until you are satisfied enough to set it aside.

Involving others in this cycle is hazardous. In most cases they will not be at the same level of understanding as you, so may over, or under commit; too loud, or soft a reaction. At this stage this project has about 150 images. It is just begun yet already has several directions possible.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be published. There is no deadline: no show, no editor waiting. Only the cold glow of the table asking:

WHAT’S NEXT?

All Work Begins with

work begins with wondering about something.

In most fields, it means wondering about that field itself. We speak the language we hear. We see what we are shown.

film on lightbox got me moving into work from another way of working. The positive and negative images add to a completely other image thought.

40 years ago, these would have had only one way of being printed. The negative being fairly strait forward; the slide could be printed more ways. Two simple, the other time consuming. Both could have been printed using dye transfer. That was my preference.

I preferred dye, not because it was ‘better’, ‘truer’ color, but because it was assembly — many ways to prepare those items.

Today as tea brewed:

In the days of Dye, my first set of masks wouldn’t be dry. Sigh.

Language is a skill requiring practice. Immersive. Recurrent. True of words as well as, perhaps even more, of images. The picture mind is hard to imagine.

Try. Please.