"Eve's Hand" by Barbara Wilson
Eve's Hand
Barbara Wilson
Media: Pinhole - Tricolor Gum Bichromate Bichromate
Size: 11" x 14"
Price: NFS
ARTIST STATEMENT
There has always been a bit of mystery in photography, capturing the moment. But there is something else that makes a photographic image more than a representation or record of what is in front of you. Finding the miracle of the moment, the inner vision of the photographer pushing the shutter, that is what art photography is about. The picture has to go beyond a pretty place or a recognizable person. You know it when you see it. The image speaks to you and takes you on a journey. Working with alternative processes helps to jump the gap often by miracles from mistakes. Great images aren’t about techniques or technology. It doesn’t matter how you get to the final product. You just know when you are there.
Barbara Wilson
PROCESS DISCRIPTION
My process begins by first taking a photograph using an old Agfa bellows camera, usually mounted on a tripod. I turned it into a pinhole camera having replaced the lens with a shim of brass with a tiny pin hole. The camera takes 120 film and the negatives are 21/4 X 31/4 inches.
I use an incident light meter app on my cell phone set at ISO 5 f64. The exposures run from a few seconds to ten minutes. I use both black & white and color negative film ASA 400. I process my black & white and send the color out to a commercial lab.
The film negatives are scanned into digital images. Then the ‘darkroom’ work is done in Adobe Photoshop. The image is split into CMYK separation negatives that are individually printed on transparency film using an Epson SureColor P800. My images do not begin with a cyanotype layered as the cyan layer. I work only with watercolor pigments that are mixed with Potassium Dichromate and Gum Arabic. Transparent color layers are built over one another similar to painting with glazes. The color mixture is coated unto a sheet of Hahnemühle Platinum Rag paper and dried before one of the separation negatives is contact printed using a UV light source. The exposed paper is developed in water for about an hour and hung to dry. The next color layer is then added building as many layers of color as needed.
