Randy
I’m about a third of the way through revising all of my Bad Trip – Sad Trip images and as usually, it is more complex than just deleting a layer in Photoshop. Sometimes, but usually there is a need to revaluate the entire tonal range of the image. So this has been a very slow process. After completing the new edition of “straight” prints, then comes the evaluation step and that will take some time. I am finding that when I the eliminate the diffusion effect on most of the images, I do not miss it. For a coupe of images, the diffusion effect seems to look better, and for a few, a more localized application is an effective compromise.
For this blog, the image is a straight version of Randy. It still retains most of its high impact qualities for me, but there was an interesting effect with the diffusion in the immediate foreground that is no longer present. Not sure what that was and why that was. This project was not an attempt to create a “high concept” artistic body of work. It still is my reaction (quasi-documentary?) to what I saw and how I feel about it. And I don’t think of this as a documentary project per se in the more traditional sense, but I guess others might.
Working on this series some more today, plus a Hep-B boster shot by the doc as it appears that I have a better than 50-50 chance of heading back to China for a client project. I still have not spent much time on the few images I made from the last trip yet either, as I have been kinda consumed with getting the Bad Trip -Sad Trip series relatively completed.
But I did make one observation in China, I did not see any road side memorials like those here in the U.S. And in recalling my numberous trips into Western Europe a couple of years ago, I do not recall any road sider memorials there either. So perhaps this is a U.S. phonemenon? I completed only one cultural anthopology course, so I do not feel qualified to state that the roadside memorials are only a U.S. cultural expression of grief, BUT so far this is only where I have seen them. oh, well, back to printing….
Best regards, Doug
