Window Girl (exhibit version)

Second out of my five pieces from the Various Perspectives show.

David Prifti is in possession of this original print, which he uses in his classes to show kids how to be adventurous in their photography. He could easily just show them his own work exclusively to demonstrate that, so it's certainly an honor to have my work used for that purpose.

The process of how this image came to be is a long one: the picture of the girl is taken from a book or a magazine, I can't remember which. I made a print of that, and then scraped up the paper and burned it with a lighter. Then I took a slide of the piece (which was part of my college application portfolio. It worked!) I recently found that slide, scanned it into the computer, removed a few distracting dust spots, changed it to black and white, and printed it out 16"x20" for the show.

In hindsight I can't decide if making it black and white was the right choice. And then I smack myself in the face, because somebody liked it enough to buy it, so don't worry about it, stupid. But something just seems off about it to me, I guess because I've been living with the color version all these years. But even printing it out in color wouldn't have captured the tactility of the burns and scratches anyway. So in the end I think the black and white works just as well in a digital print medium, and it fit in better with my other pieces, which were all black and white as well. For the record, here's the original, with yellowed burn marks and all, mounted on a white board which I "smoked" with a lighter: