Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 2


Funny Face Homage
Funny Face Homage

This is an example of completing two photo projects in one week. Long time fans of Jill and the keenly observant will note that she is wearing the same shirt as in Psyched Up (Not Out). That is because these pictures were taken moments apart.

Another observation that could be made is that this is the inverse of the June picture in the 2010 Photography 139 Calendar.


Funny Face Homage
Funny Face Homage Inverse

The positive image (image at the top) is the image that was originally designed. The image in the calendar was something I did later in post production for fun. As it turns out, Jill actually prefers the inversion and while her feedback may have contributed to its inclusion in the calendar over the originally designed image the real reason is one of practicality. An image that has this much dark and black is hard for a printer to print with any kind of quality. So the much lighter inversion was selected. This is why calls by Baier to include moon photography in the calendar have been ignored to date.*

I indicated in an earlier entry that this picture was placed on June because it represents a darkroom technique. This was another contributing factor. That image was created in Photoshop, but it is an image that could be made in the darkroom and was inspired by many of my darkroom failures. Failures that can be seen in my newly christened “failure trunk” that resides in my basement.

Memory is a funny thing. The original picture was inspired by the Audrey Hepburn movie Funny Face. I’m certain that they settled for Audrey Hepburn because they didn’t have a Jill Gorshe. Fortunately, I didn’t have to settle.

It had been a couple of years since I watched that movie, but I do remember being inspired to make this image immediately during my initial viewing.

A few days after taking this picture, I re-watched Funny Face. It turns out that it is in color. I remembered it being in black and white. That is okay, I prefer my image to be in black and white.

Here is a still from the scene in the movie Funny Face that inspired this picture.


Funny Face Homage

This picture did take a little bit of groundwork to make. The inverse image in the image comes from a test picture I took of Jill a couple months ago when she posed for the hand picture.



I converted this picture to black and white, cropped it and made it into a negative image.


Funny Face Homage

Admittedly, Jill isn’t crazy about this image of her. That might be why she likes the FFH Inverse better.

Although I personally love all of these pictures (mostly because of my ego problem) my favorite picture is actually somewhat of a joke.

As anybody has modeled for me can tell you, I don’t give much direction. Therefore, when Jill sought direction, I told her just look at her picture. I didn’t want any kind of a modeling pose.

She replied, “That is good. Because if I tried to model it would look goofy like this…”

Then she did the following.


Funny Face Homage

Hilarious!

Next week’s personal photo project involves a creature that did not live to see its artistic contribution to the world unveiled. Despite the insinuations of Jay, I didn’t commit murder. It died completely independent of my actions. I do confess that it was convenient for me that it passed on because I have no clue what I was going to do with it, but fate bailed me out. Not my own actions.

*Incidentally, tonight is a great night to go out and watch the moon. It is the perigee moon. The largest full moon of the year. It is as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than other full moons you’ll see later this year!

4 thoughts on “Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 2”

  1. I love the explanations behind this piece – I wondered for a second how this was new (having seen the calendar), but then realized that it was the inverse.

    I also love that you numerically quantified why people should look at the moon tonight. "Now with 31% more flavor!" 😉

  2. For the record, that isn't a made up number. Those numbers are scientifically valid.

    Since the posting of the Personal Photo Project is 6 weeks behind real time, it is possible that anybody that walks by my wall at work will see the personal photo projects weeks before they are posted. At least they will see some of them.

    Glad you like the explanation this week. Next week's back story is a little bit sad.

  3. Once I get off the couch, I'm going to have to start making a habit of walking by your desk whenever I am up and around. I don't mind sneaking an unauthorized early glance. 🙂

    I bet it will still be beautiful, even in the sadness.

  4. The good news about next week's posting is that the picture itself is meant to be comical. Although my recent experiences on a social network website have lead me to believe that the joke will be missed and I will have people with sore feelings hurt egos upset at me.

    Hopefully, the initial reaction will be one of laughter and then maybe a little bit of sadness after they read the rest of the story.

    I'm running out of space on my wall, so I'll have to make a decision about that in the near future.

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