Getting Closer

CAUTION - VINTAGE IMAGES - HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT - FILM ERA - 15 YEARS AGO -IMPERFECT... more

by Jill Reger

Title

Getting Closer

Artist

Jill Reger

Medium

Photograph

Description

CAUTION - VINTAGE IMAGES - HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT - FILM ERA - 15 YEARS AGO -IMPERFECT

These images were shot at the end of the film era, a time where perfection was elusive.

Their story - In the film days all color underwater photography looked light, milky blue with a half seen blurry subject. The significance of the my photographic series "Diving Dog" is that I had solved the problem of color, contrast and clarity in a non digital world.

I solved the color problem by not shooting color film at all. I photographed the dog using b&w infrared film in an underwater camera. Infrared film on a b&w print has the appearance of living things (trees, people, animals) glowing, while the use of a red filter turns all blues dark. This was the perfect solution for the contrast and clarity. The dark depth achieved turned a 5 foot deep play pool into a world of deep water.

I next had to figure out how to color the photographs. Standard coloring places pigment on top of the silver (grey tones in a print) and the color becomes muddy looking. I discovered that toners came in sepia, blue and yellow... just the colors I needed. You most likely have heard of sepia toner which gives images an brownish antique feel. Toners have a unique coloring process. They actually remove the silver from the print and replace it with pure color pigment. The results being pure color.

The next hurdle was to figure out how to actually do the multiple coloring, since prints are soaked in toners for the process to happen. A way to keep toner off of a certain area is to use rubber cement painted on any areas you wish to keep clear of the toner. Then it is removed once dried. That would have entailed masking the dog, toning blue, drying then masking the blue and toning sepia on the dog. The double masking was sure to leave unsightly lines that would have given the feeling that a picture of a dog was simply cut and pasted into the image of the water.

While experimenting, I was pleasantly surprised when i accidentally discovered that sepia toner actually erased blue toner (but not the other way around)... I didn't get away from masking completely since i needed the teeth and tongue to have nether sepia or blue. After masking the mouth I immersed the print in the blue toner. Once it was toned but while sill wet, I took a q-tip with a super concentrated sepia toner and painted the dog. This allowed me to feather and give softer edges and well as keep the parts of the dog further away, the legs, partially sepia and partially blue.

After the prints were dried, I removed the rubber cement from the mouth and colored the tongue using fountain pen ink.

When viewing the images you will see the flaws of the process from a time perfection could not be achieved unlike today with digital. The photographs are grainy, don't appear as sharp as we've become accustomed to, and have a number of other flaws from the processes used. All these things are what make them special and give their story.

So, if you are looking for digital perfection these photographs are not for you. If you want to own a piece of history from the end of the film era, these are perfection.

15 years after the fact, I could have used digital technology to repair all the flaws and make them perfect, which I believe would have removed all character from them.

Uploaded

May 2nd, 2012