Mrs. Morton's Third Grade Class
digitally imaged

    After finishing PK's Place, I was excited to get started on something other than Polaroid transfers. I enjoyed the loss of information that Polaroid transfers had, but I wanted something that had a more mechanical quality unlike the Polaroid transfers' almost watercolored look. I decided that 110 cameras and film would provide a grainy and degraded image. I found a box of my very old 110 prints taken with my Fisher Price camera. I picked out a few scanned them in and set out to try and weave them together, the result being Mrs. Morton's Third Grade Class. In PhotoShop I layered and masked off parts in order to emphasis key places.
    My old photos function on two different levels for me, they first represent the decaying image, but it also represents my own decaying memory. The image is simple but is a step toward using other media to convey my already polished style and ideas.
    I combined the image of my class, with the image of a fence, and that of a wide open sky. The fence separates the viewer from the children, from the past. I liked the grainy quality but trying to work within a set of stock photos is impractical, in addition the colors were to intrusive. I am going to experiment with black and white infra-red film and push processing, in order to get the heavy grain effect I'm after.

Shawn Rider: information
digitally imaged

Murder: a story in for parts

    I used to different methods to combine multiple images, one using the computer the other a combination of manual ways and the computer. The first method was used on the image Murder a Story in Four Parts, I made the transfers in the usual manner, a total of four of them, each on a separate piece of paper. I scanned the individual images in and combined them in PhotoShop. The second method was used to make Shawn Rider: information, I actually used one large piece of watercolor paper and combined all five of the transfers directly onto the same paper. I then made measurements of Shawn Rider and collected as many important numbers and dates from him as I could. I then transferred this raw data onto the actual paper, using a black fountain pen. After I was done with the writing, I sprayed a fine mist of water over the page which made the black ink run slightly and revealed an orange layer. I then scanned the original into the computer (it was too big for the scanner bed, so I had to scan it in sections). In PhotoShop, I added more numbers and text as well as a screen in spots.
    These multiple images reflect my original ideas about collage and text. In Murder: a Story in Four Parts, I introduced the idea of narrative (the act of telling a story) into my images. I was also working with the arrangement of images in order to express the narrative. In Murder: a Story in Four Parts, I was still working with the idea of the "untruth" of photography by making an obviously fabricated crime scene. In Shawn Rider: information the idea was to truly incorporate the text and image in a visual way as well as enforcing the false truth in photography idea. I enforce this by giving facts in form of the numbers, actual measurements, but removing them from any real context, much like any photograph. I am very happy with both these images, but I see them more as the beginnings of my fully released work.

Others

Crime Trace

Ruben

What, Me Worry?

(C) 1998 Sarah Wichlacz