Just a couple more using vary lengths of time in the water. Varying how they are positioned as well.
Tag Archives: water
Waves: Still Soaking
With in the photo degradation series I am continuing to work on the waves project. I am varying the length of time the prints soak in the ocean water. As well as what I am doing tot he prints prior to putting them into the container.
Interesting results are coming through strangely enough the blue/cyan seems to be the first that is affected by the process. So these become very red/magenta and yellow images. The pictures Im posting are all direct scans with no editing.
Also I decided to through one of the photos into the bleaching solution used for the cyanotypes, while no change was immediately noted, the picture has a definite browning to the over all work. I did not allow it to soak long, i was just experimenting but its interesting and I may decided to move forward a little on this thing.
Further Degradation in the Waves series.
So I spent some time soaking some other prints in the ocean water. I love the way this is altering the prints. As time moves forward I am soaking them individually rather than multiples at a time as well as floating them on top of the water.
Either way I feel that the spirit and theme of the work is working well together. I really am altering the representation of the thing that they are of.
The Ocean
So along the same lines of The Composted Prints , I am interested in altering the prints after they are printed. This was a set I did during one of my frequant trips to Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, Ca. I place I draw a lot of centering and calm from. I decided months ago to allow the peace in my mind, the meditation and connection to take photos.
I took a lot of photos this trip never changing focus or any camera setting during the adventure. The question was what to do with these photos after ward. I started with

Tides , After a while a was unhappy with these images and reedited the photos and produced a different look. While I enjoy this image I wanted something more, I felt that the images were not the thing that I have found so consoling, but simply a representation of such. So I began looking to it in a different way.
I made prints of the Individual images in the larger piece. At 5×5 they are not large but big enough to take notice. This last weekend I spent some meditative time at the location and collected some of the tide waters as i was there. After coming home in the evening with a jar full of ocean water, I shoved 4 of the prints into the salted water. Forty Eight hours passed with no changes to the images, and i was beginning to thing that this would be an exercise in idea rather than physical alteration.
I awoke this morning to sudden and noticeable change, there was cyan flecks floating in the ocean water and the prints had been forever changes to the one of a kind images.
Tides: Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, Ca 20 September 2015 8 to 9am
Tides: Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, Ca 20 September 2015 8 to 9am
The Ocean is a powerful force, it can calm the soul, center the mind, cleanse the turmoil. People listen to sounds of the ocean to calm them selves, others go to dip their toes and plant themselves back on the ground. Waves touch bare skin and pulll away stress, washing it out of us as though it was all we needed to be bathed in the earth its self.
I have always found this to be true. I love barely 20 miles from the ocean and do not make it there nearly often enough. I find the sounds nd the views simply recenter me in times of stress. The knowledge of all enternity is encompassed in the rhythm of the tide.
So in order to keep up my own mental well being and centering I have decided to make a project out of it, exploring the value of going to the edge of land on a regular basis. The plan is to make many photographs on each trip and display them in grid formats. These images are not perfect, more so they are and idea. They track the process of a meditative journey. Some are tack sharp as the mind maybe others flow as thoughts come and go.