Thursday 15 November 2012

Facing Up to a project

More experiments from the summer. I was doing rather a lot of lumen prints and while at a festival had been looking at all the tents around me and I was chatting with friends.

I had been looking at someone quite intently for some time and then I looked away and stared at the side of the bell tent, I had a 'vision' an afterimage so clear that since we had been discussing the Turin shroud and how the oils etc may have created the image on the cloth it seemed only fitting that I would try and recreate this apparition as a lumen print. 


I don't have particularly oily skin but seeing as it was high summer and we were slathered in sun cream I thought this would act as a suitable barrier.




The second image has just been auto corrected in PS to bring out the image more nothing else was done. I do actually like the original image and I was quite pleased with the way the face appeared.




So I used grade 1 Ilford paper and got my subjects to start on one side of their face and roll the paper to the other, much like the cloth would be if draped over a face. These were then put out into the sun for four hours under glass. My subject for the first image had a moustache and beard and this can clearly be seen on the paper.  The dark areas are where the sun has managed to reach the surface of the paper and it started to change quite quickly. 





 The first image was not as strong as hoped for but this was also of a child and quite small on the paper, once it was corrected it was only slightly more visible.


I did however discover that sun cream and emulsion doesn't do great things to your skin, it was a bit like kissing a battery and so I didn't redo the childs face!

                                         


This is an image of my face, it was rolled and so looks enormous,  the image was stronger before it was fixed but I managed to pull out some of the contrasts when corrected. I like the ghostly image though. It is just easier to see the results in the corrected ones.



The last images of this series from the festival are again mine but I shall endeavour to capture more from willing subjects!
                                           



This last image I think has really worked, though not necessarily very complimentary, it clearly has form.