Shlee Vincent

So, as with any good project, you don’t do all your work without any research.

My mom sent me this website a few weeks ago. Jessica Barnak is a portrait photographer right here in Delaware. In fact, she lives just next door to my mother. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the chance to meet her yet, but I have been looking at her photos.

The photos she blogs are pretty stunning, whether they were shot inside or outside on location. They bring me a little bit closer to the classicness of portraits and how artsy and personal they can really be. I’m loving all of these location shots and am really feeling pushed to think about how I can use what’s around me to add to the photos I’ll be taking this week and next.

What’s really striking, though, are the expressions on the faces – especially those of the little kids. While working at the portrait studio, I shot a lot of different kids and got a lot of different expressions. After a while, many of the parents favorites became standard expressions that no longer spoke to me. Almost all of the photos I looked at on Jessica’s blog had something different to say to me.

That’s what I’m going to be aiming for.

Tracy and I took a mini trip to the abandoned amusement park last night. Cut short by the impending darkness, we’ll have to finish up at a later date. But I definitely got some more fun stuff to print.

Here are some of the photos from yesterday.

And now for some silliness… =)

Over the weekend, the transparencies I needed to try out cyanotypes with enlarged negatives. It was cloudy out, but I tried making a few more today. I was really excited to try them and the results came out pretty well considering my limited sunlight. I’m also starting to becoming more aware of how the chemicals react.

Here are the results.

In other news, Kerri’s coming down this weekend! There will definitely be a lot of updates afterwards.

Contact print (5"x7" on watercolor paper)

I’ve had off for the past three days. So, what did I do with my glorious three-day weekend? Well, I did some hot yoga. I also sat around and watched a lot of television (despite the fact that I don’t have cable). This was mainly because I needed some background noise for the main task of the weekend. And what would that be?

I got down and dirty with possibly my new favorite photographic medium. Cyanotypes.

They’re an easy activity for a sunny afternoon. And my neighbors were very interested as I went in and out of my apartment and left little goodies out in front of the building. One of them even quoted, “If I knew how to do this, I would just smoke weed and do this all day.” Yea, they’re that cool. I was mainly experimenting with photograms – which are particularly easy when you don’t have any negatives.

Sean’s mom collects sea glass and other oceanic objects. I thought they’d be cool to play with, so they were my theme. Here are the results.

They all have this prehistoric feel to me. And now for something completely different.

Since I didn’t have any transparencies to make large scale negatives, I figured I’d play around a bit with some negatives I had to make some small prints.

Thompson Bridge Road (4"x4" on watercolor paper)

Coffee Run Cemetery (4"x4" on watercolor paper)

Contact print (5"x7" on watercolor paper)

I think I’m actually going to make use of my Etsy and start making some postcard-sized prints. Maybe someone will be interested. What do you think? Would you buy from me?

Yesterday, I had a little fun in my kitchen with chemicals. No foul play, of course. What I was working on was the “New” Cyanotype solution – which is comprised of some pretty serious chemicals (next time I think I might go with the traditional kit). I wasn’t sure if I’d done it right, however, I did manage to make a photogram yesterday. I think I’m on the right track and have even ordered some transparencies and laser printer ink.

Nancy Breslin introduced me to the UV photo process in the black and white course I took with her a few summers ago. We didn’t do anything with them, but watched as she worked with them. Kerri experimented with them in Nancy’s alternative processes course and continued to work with them in other courses and on silk during her artist residency in Berkeley, CA. Now, it’s my turn.

Anyway, this was the fruit of my labor. I’ll be working on more in the next few weeks, too.