Tomorrow my
World Tour resumes to all places local and exotic. I thought it fitting on this World Tour Eve, to share my latest lumen print, "Flight". But first, the story.... Last week on my
Facebook page, I shared a story and photo of this broken butterfly wing I found on the sidewalk.
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| Butterfly Wing 2012 |
Long story short, I suffer from a completely stereotypical girlish and irrational fear of bugs. I managed to somewhat overcome this fear last week and scoop up the wing remainder with a pair of leaves....While I am not afraid of butterflies, I certainly don't want to touch them. Scratch that - if one lands on me, I'd be delighted, but still, once that they have passed on, I really dont want to touch their deceased remains. This is turning into quite a a problem with my Lumen Printing though, b/c there is no denying the beauty of a butterfly wing, or of other (certain) insects.
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| Butterfly & Flower 2009 |
Again...wanna print them....don't wanna touch 'em. I've passed on a great many butterfly printing opportunities due to my inability to pick them up off of the sidewalk, so I devised other methods of making butterfly lumen prints..
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| Butterfly Stars 2012 |
My determination to pick up the butterfly wing last week puzzled me a bit. It was, after all, only a partial wing, and probably wouldn't make much sense as a lumen print, which is simply a solar photogram. My artificial one turned out quite nice. It served a purpose though, it got me thinking about my first "bug" print....a cicada wing found floating in a friends pool (I made her fish it out for me...)
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| Cicada & Leaves |
And then....the swamp bug....
Just before the World Tour, I was working on a movie that filmed in a swamp. I became enamored with a pheasant feather (not exactly sure what kind of feather it was, looked like a pheasant..). I took it home thinking it would make an interesting lumen print. It did, and in fact, that feather started a new series of lumen prints of which I am still working on. Unbeknownst to me, however, that as I left the swamp, I had a bright green tiny bug stuck to my purse. I discovered it the next day. To anyone else, this is no big deal, to me, well, it took one pair of tweezers and about an hour or two to remove it. But I thought...hmmm... i could print this...
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Feather & Bug
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I realized that butterflies, and therefore, insects, had long been a part of my photographic reportoire:
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| Mariposa (Handtinted Silver Gelatin) 2001 |
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| Paul's Butterfly (from the series "The Class of 2019") 2008 |
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| Butterfly Ginger (Lumen Print) 2010 |
If you read the World Tour blogs, then you know part of the reason that I wanted to embark on the journey was to get back behind my camera lens. I had spent a long time on my lumen prints and wanted a change....just what the butterfly represents. No wonder I like them! And fear them! Well, not them, but insects, and maybe a little bit of change... Anyhoo, I couldn't give up on the Lumen Prints, so I've been working on the World Tour while simultaneously creating a new series of Feather lumen prints. And now, the butterfly has awakened an "insect" calling...or is it just the wings? Feathers...wings....flight...World Tour travels...I'm starting to see a pattern here...
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| Flight 2012 |
Tomorrow, the Louisiana
World Tour begins its final chapter. What an amazing year and journey this has been. However, all life is change and a new chapter soon begins....
Next Up on the World Tour:
Tales from the Orient
all content (c) Natasha Sanchez
