Evolution of a Doodle

I started with a little ball point pen doodle the size of my thumbnail, scanned and enlarged to roughly 5"square....

Removed the white background layer in Photoshop, and printed out on old paper.  On this, I did some light coloring.....

Re-scanned, and edited in Photoshop where I digitally painted more than 20 new versions.  Here's a detail of the latest.....

To view the whole thing and other versions, see on the sMacVision Facebook page, it's open to the public.

Can You Say Procrastinate?

For pete's sake, I can finally cross this off the forever long list of 'To-Dos'!  I shot my friend, artist Brian Ermanski back in the Fall of 2010, and said I'd make him a disk.  It was an impromptu shoot, and consisted of more than one night.  And not being a commissioned work it kept being placed on the back burner.  As I shoot at night, without flash, the photos need some attending to (post-processing, the originals are quite dark).  It took hours and hours, days and weeks, and kept being interrupted with more pressing jobs.  Finally I gave a definitive deadline in order to force myself to get this thing done and delivered, but then Hurricane Sandy hit us.   Soho was in the blackout area for a week.  (I won't go into that).  Once we were back on the grid I had two jobs lined up which I had to finish before I could go back to Brian's photos.  And two days ago I was thrilled to deliver the disk to his Tribeca studio where he's getting ready for a show on Monday.  How great to see his immense reaction as he stopped to look at the 136 images on his laptop with me.  He said he had never seen himself photographed that way, and it was a wonderful feeling to make someone so happy with my photos.

My Hand-Drawn + Digital Processing Method

Details and more on the sMacVision Facebook page.  There's a link over there in the right-hand sidebar, please consider following!  :)

Post Hurricane Sandy 20% off Sale!

Rather than go on with my Hurricane Sandy 'war stories', let me just be grateful that I now have electricity, a subway, and heat.  Many do not.  My silly problems were merely temporary, I cannot complain.  Now would be a nice time to take advantage of a rare sale on some sMacVision goodies.  Holidays are here!  The sale is in my Etsy shop only.

The Summer Of Double (and Triple) Exposures

This year more than any other year I made so many mistaken double, even triple exposures with all of my cameras.  To clarify, in the past, it has always been bound to happen with my roll film cameras; you take a picture, then forget to wind.  The plastic toys don't have much protection or warning to prevent a shutter button from being depressed if the film has not been advanced one frame after taking a photo.  Certainly, this could be a good thing, allowing for artistic license with intentional double exposures, or advancing as little or as much as one wants between frames in order to make the photos spaced well-apart vs. overlapping.  A mistaken double exposure, however, is upsetting mainly because it tends to ruin two potentially good photos, and I am baffled as to how many times I actually did it with Polaroid film this year (like the one above)!  Over and over.  I'm getting forgetful in my old age if I can't even remember to pull the photo out once I've snapped it.  gah!

Alterations

I am not of those fellow Polaroid shooters who are purists; who believe you should scan, print, or display a photo exactly as it comes out of the camera.  I do do it.  But have no rule against not doing it.  Sometimes a little alternative processing feels more correct for me.  Might have to do with my synesthesia, or might not.

The Armory: I Wear What I Make

In fact, I made them for myself only, originally.  I couldn't find what I 'wanted' out there, so made these.  I wear them stacked up, like so, and love all the little colors together, like a handful of candies; candied religious medals, only with my quirky illustrations.  :P

People started complimenting me on them, so I started selling them offline.  They do much  better in person.  I've had them listed online before and don't do so well.  I think they have to be seen to be appreciated, and that's fine with me.

This photo of course, does not show off their colorful beauty.  I have another post here, and here, and here where  you can see that.  My sister took this up at the beach house by the ocean one morning a couple of weeks ago.... it's black and white Polaroid film (very expired, note the high contrast, blown out teeth and chin? And it's very schmootzy, see the speckles and stuff?)