It's always a kick in the pants as a photographer when something goes wrong while shooting and you are left with a considerably lower yield than you were expecting. From shooting yesterday and today I only gained a few good source images, but that just life, as long as at least one bullet hits the junky the cop did his job, or something like that. More after the break...
But failed negative rolls can't really get me down. On the very rare occurrences I shoot a blank, what I'm left with is plenty of plastic to use for my effects negative. In the mean time there is still more to dive into, like this picture of my roommate I shot just this year. It must have been a good day because when I hit the button thingy on my camera it actually showed up on that yucky fruit roll up that you stick in it.
For the effects I tried a new technique. Using metallic airbrush paint I finger painted onto the negative, and while it was drying I tapped at it with the tip of my finger pulling some of the paint off and leaving some on. I did this until there was a few thin layers of paint in a random pattern. Then I masked off the figures as I usually do, but for this picture I threw the effects slightly out of focus to make them a bit softer. In the end the effects layer darkened the scene around the figure just enough to make him slightly illuminate.
I was trying to think of something to cool compare it with, but nothing came to mind. So I browsed online until I found something that reminded me of it...
This is "Welcome Home" by Kevin Pinardy, not sure what year. I really don't know anything else about him, but his photos are good so check him out. Minus the Asian aspect I see a few things in common, like the long perspective and the the grungy atmosphere. But my picture was shot near Johns Hopkins, so maybe there is an Asian in there somewhere... comparison justified!
http://www.pinardy.com/