more film photog
i was going for a very the turn of the screw -esque type thing with this set of photographs. for those who haven't read the book: a young governess, whose job is to take care of these children at a large estate, starts seeing ghosts and going crazy. it's supposed to be a ghost story; nothing is ever mentioned about schizophrenia, but it's pretty much implied that the governess is becoming more and more mentally ill. but instead of schizophrenia 'the governess' (aka jessi of whom i now have a BILLION pictures, creepy?) has maybe multiple personality disorder, or a combination of the two. sooo, click on the LJ cut to see her spiral into insanity.
the negative was scratched with scissors and stepped on by a chinese slipper.
i need to clean my scanner, methinks.
i put one negative on top of the other. look how her mouth is her eyebrow! and her hand is her arm!
i cut up three different negatives and used masking tape to put them back together. then i scratched the monster-negative again with scissors and completely ruined the emulsion for one of the faces.
i had a hard time with this one. i wanted the final image in the set to be whole and not scratched, and to look dreamy and kind of content in an off way. this is because though she has already split into different personalities, from the outside she is still whole... and perhaps unaware of any internal struggle. first i tried putting crinkled/scratched plastic over the photo paper when making the exposure, but it just kind of looked like i had progressed into something darker (i.e. the photo above) and then weenied out of anything more or equally extreme. then i thought about drawing a tiny bird in the tree to emphasize her state of unwellness or whatever, but i was worried i'd mess up and ruin the negative. then i grabbed one of those small "professional photo wipes" and put that over the negative in the carrier and this is the result. it looks like some sort of disease or chemical spill and i am happy with it.
for my next project i'm going to hopefully emulate joel-peter witkin, but i'm pretty sure i can't get any midgets, transexuals, hermaphrodites, or corpses as models. i'm not sure what the subject matter is going to be, but i'm doing it with black and white 120S film and it's going to be weird. if anyone is interested in modeling PLEASE LET ME KNOW. and if you are a girl with a penis, you have to help out. seriously.
some of joel-peter witkin's stuff (beware; very naked, morbid, and disturbing): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
