In yesterdays post about my new series Quantum Elements and a small series within in the larger body of work that I am calling Time-Refractory Abstractions, I suspect that the image I shared might be a bit visually overwhelming. There is a lot going on within the image. Nevertheless, I think that makes it a complex image that is very mysterious and intriguing.
I think the resulting image easily leans into abstraction as there is a ton of ambiguity; just what are we looking at and what is the ‘subject’? Also ambiguity as to scale, just how large or small of an area are we looking at? I also know that this is actually very difficult to see due to the conditions I used to capture the image.
Thus as what-if, I did a little sub-set to break down of the original to see what else might be visually lurking there. Actually this is an old composition exercise that I have used for editing; taking an image and see what other possibilities might be present when you crop the image tighter. The goal is to try to find at least a dozen of other images within the original to help understand what the various visual building blocks one uses. Sometimes very interesting and odd images are found that subsequently influence the final cropping of a given image.
I suspect that I could press in even tighter with this image detail, but I think I am distilling it down into some interesting tones, colors, shapes, masses and textures. This image might be what one sees when they walk up close to examine the photograph, which at the moment I am thinking of going to 40 x 60 inches.
Btw, I also did a trial print on the Hahnemuehle Metallic Rag, which looks pretty amazing. Might be my go-to from printing this work as an alternative to dye-sublimation on aluminum. The Metallic Rag I can print myself (with size restrictions), while for the dye-sublimation I need to use a pro-print shop which specializes in this process.
Cheers & be stay safe
Doug
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My coming exhibition and approaching book workshop:
Medium Photo 2020 Workshop: Developing a Creative Book workshop, which will now be virtual safe-at-home workshop that I will be leading is eight 2-hour Zoom segments over four weeks, starting Saturday, September 26th. This eight session workshop takes place on Saturdays from 10am–12pm (Pacific time) and Wednesdays from 4–6pm (Pacific time).
January 16th – February 13th 2021; Photographs’s Eye gallery, Escondido, CA, a two-person exhibition that will feature my Memory Pods series (lens-based photography) in conjunction with the photographer Louise Russell. Exhibition reception is January 16th, 3:00 – 7:00 pm with reservations required to maintain social distancing.
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Featured artwork; Time-Refraction 7855 detail (Quantum Elements series), copyright 2020, Douglas Stockdale
Singular Images 
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