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| A Moment of Consequence - 2 My next task was to create a truly fantastic yet still believable environment for my subject to inhabit. I had a general idea of what I was looking for but finding that actual landscape to photograph was a challenge, especially when one is limited in choice to the one small island of Oahu in Hawaii |
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I was lucky to find a wonderful vista on an early Sunday morning hike just 10 miles from my home. Makapu’u Point, looks back towards the extinct volcanic cinder cone of Koko head crater and Sandy Beach, the famous body- surfing beach on the island of Oahu.
It took 5 successive photographs to capture this broad panorama on film. These were then scanned and seamlessly connected using Adobe Photoshop to create the landscape below. |
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Now with my landscape created I could start working on the one element that originally spawned the idea for this print, a ring of clouds floating above the earth which would give birth to my subject soaring through the sky. I envisioned this cloud ring to be texturally believable yet obviously a manufactured surreal element.
To do this I had to appropriate a photograph of a storm front to give me that rounded cloud edge. The ring was created by duplicating and then “butterflying” that quarter circle to give me an entire ring of cloud.
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| Other cloud photos were layered over this structure to give the ring a more natural impression or a surface believability. |
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| The final product, once given more sky, is quite striking and has a similar feel to the monumental, dramatic images created by 19th century English painter John Martin. |
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With the landscape and surreal sky combined the magical environment I originally dreamed of begins to take shape. The only element remaining is my soaring brave subject, Kenzo.
As a printmaker one has to constantly be aware that your final goal is to create an image which can be successfully printed. With this in mind I had to consider whether I would make this image a one or two plate print. With only one plate I could have no substantial color change between my image elements. Therefore I chose to have the sky and landscape be on one plate and the image of Kenzo “floating” on another.
In order to not have the image of the sky plate show through the body of Kenzo when printed I created a fuzzy edged white silhouette of his form so that this area would not take much ink. Because of this silhouette registration between the two plates would have to be precise when printing the edition.
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The final stage is to make the two plate film positives, translated into a printable dot pattern, then have them professionally produced for a crisp dense black dot. These film positives are then contact-expose using Ultra Violet light onto photo-polymer etching plates. Once established on the plates they are ready to be inked by hand and printed. |
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Below is the final photographic “mock-up” where all images and elements are combined to create a near
finished visual. Thus another print is made. |
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