I was getting rid of an old single drawer filing cabinet and had to turn it on its end to lift it. Something inside shifted. I thought it was empty, but when I looked there were several papers and a small baggie with some slides. One of the slides is the pastel of my old basement studio steps from 50 years ago. The slide is dated ‘Oct 1976’ so I had the film developed just before I moved to Philadelphia. I really thought I’d moved the year before, but I guess I was just visiting for the Bicentenial Independence Day fireworks at city hall that I clearly remembered. I started at the pizza shop in November ’76.
I was young and experimenting. Here I had worked on the textured side of the Canson Mi Teintes that I used. Usually I worked on the smooth side. I remember doing a house portrait for a friend and I used the textured side. He did not like it. “It’s covered in spots!”
Work this old is usually embarrassing. Why wasn’t I working harder? With this piece my technique is rough and immature but looking at it I get a real sense of being there and looking out the window. I call that a success.
I love the earthiness of colors and lighting really makes me feel I am there. If this was from a slide, I am curious how did you get into digital format?
Thanks! I opened a large white document in Photoshop on my Desktop. Then I taped the slide to the monitor and snapped a pic with my iPad. That’s the image you see here. I wish they put decent cameras in the iPad, but I imagine they think I have a phone for GOOD pictures.