My rock and roll band A CITY SAFE FOM SEA is heading out to a couple of dates next week. We haven’t played a show in a couple of months and I can’t wait to get out there and play some drums. Winter is my favorite time to tour, it’s cold and cozy. Check out our website for dates and times starting on Jan 3.
Made it back safe and sound today. Went to sleep this morning around 2 only to get up at 5 and drive Danger to the airport. I got into studio around 6Am and began work. I was able to walk away with three proofed images so I can’t really complain too much. Thanks again to everyone at R.I.T. , especially Keith Howard and Bernice Cross for inviting me back for second time and allowing me to commandeer a third of the studio.
So after a really long couple of days with very little to no luck it appears that there may possibly be some light at the end of the tunnel. Plate after plate, image after image, everything was going wrong. So I stripped the plates and started over with the idea that I could make the positives work if I changed my exposure time. So I went from 18LU to 40LU and got some good results. The image is good, but I stripped it and decided to lower the exposure to 35LU with the hopes of making the colors appear just a little richer. So, at midnight, all the plates are laminated and waiting for me tomorrow morning. Daniel fly’s off to LA for the ‘Lost” opening at Gallery 1988 tomorrow moring around 6Am, and I’ll be back here in a mad dash to proof what I can and pack up for the drive home….
THINGS ARE NOT GOING SMOOTHLY.
Started off today’s proofing with code name “Crumble”, which came out super dark, almost to the point of me falling on the ground and giving up. So we started the process to figure out what was going on, which looked like this…
which is varying degrees of desperation. First we tried cutting the black, which followed with cutting on the colors percentage with transparent base, then to printing the entire image as a ghost image, which actually worked out okay if a little faded. But we finally got something that was going to be a good enough compromise at this point, at least enough to move forward. We found success just ghosting the black plate so we tried on the full image, and got this…
which didn’t look anything like that we did before or at least thought would happen this time around. Sorta realized at this point that the test plates and full image plates had to many variables between them, so it’s back to the full plate.
At this point I am ready for a nap but I only have about 36 hours left and I would really like to go home with some nice prints… right now it’s all about the Wegmans Asian buffet and Turkey Hill Orange Tea….
As 2 am approaches codename: “Orange Factory” is coming off the of Canon IPF610. This could be the last image I work on while here, our transparency film is sure to run out soon and I saved the largest image for last. That said it looks like the list is final for me this trip.
Codenames:
“Wawa”
“Wildwood”
“Crumble”
“Bedroom Factory”
“Orange Factory”
“Arimingo (if i still have film)”
Be back tomorrow to start the printing.
Things are moving along here pretty smoothly. We worked last night until 1:30 before heading to the chateau in Spencerport. So far the printer has been keeping up on it’s end of the bargain and the halftone have been coming out really nice. About two of the images are completely exposed and ready to print, 2 more are ready to expose and 2 waiting to come off the printer. Daniel is starting to prep his image which we will be tackling next. Stay tuned for preview images of prints going to the press tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning around 5 AM I’ll be heading back up to the Rochester Institute of Technology for 4 days of printing. I will of course be joined by Daniel Danger as we spend the couple days navigating a blizzard, making intaglio prints, and running to taco bell. This trip will be different on many levels, I will remember to bring a change of clothes. I’ll be working on about 5 or so images and Daniel will be working on a super secret top level print of his own, details later. We will be posting updates as the printing moves forward, check back in. If you’d like to take a look at some of the potential images, check out my flickr account. Thanks.
If this is a repeat for you I apologize in advance. On black friday I was mugged at gun point about two blocks from my apartment. My wife and I were cleaning it out after moving into our house the weekend before. I was heading to the subway to come to the studio to do some work and I was attacked from behind. A man grabbed my shoulder and placed a gun to my head with the other hand. The forced me to the ground demanded my money. I handed over my wallet but was more afraid that I would loose my camera which was in a bag around my shoulder. After they took my wallet I just continued to repeat that I didn’t have any thing, he returned and placed the gun back to my head and threatened to take something else (my life, my bags?).
In my camera were all of the photos that I had been working on for the last week. The photos are the images I am going to be working on in a couple weeks at R.I.T. I hope they can provide me with some sort of justification for leaving them and myself in a state where I can actually bring them to fruition and into finished prints. Above is a print called “Untitled (Veiled speed limit sign)” which I finished last week. In a lot of ways this could have been my last print and thats freaky to think about.
