Facial Reconstruction

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Maris
Posts: 882
Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Facial Reconstruction

Postby Maris » 29 Jul 2020, 14:17

Image
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa VC FB photographic paper, image size 24.7cm X 19.3cm,
from a 8x10 Kodak Tmax 400 negative exposed in a Tachihara 810HD field view camera fitted with a Fujinon-W 300mm f5.6 lens.

A truly brave and cheerful friend of mine the day after her surgical facelift. She said the surgeon used 800 tiny blue nylon stitches to hold his work together against the forces of swelling and bruising.

Walter Glover
Posts: 1270
Joined: 31 Jul 2012, 22:31
Location: Leichhardt, NSW

Re: Facial Reconstruction

Postby Walter Glover » 01 Aug 2020, 08:17

What an absolutely amazing revelation of just how little hard data we need to read and connect empathetically with our kindred and kind. Such a tale of inner veracity there is in a comparison of the hand gestures; especially given that the brave and generous sitter quite possibly has no visual reference that might prompt shielding such an unencumbered statement of absolute truth.
This image will be a fucus for meditation and contemplation for some time to come. Lovely.
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant

User avatar
Maris
Posts: 882
Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Re: Facial Reconstruction

Postby Maris » 07 Aug 2020, 14:28

Thanks Walter for your sympathetic analysis. Empathy was the main motivator for this picture. The brave sitter left her patient wrist band on but insisted on the bandage over the two blackest eyes in Australia; didn't want to look like a panda.

Walter Glover
Posts: 1270
Joined: 31 Jul 2012, 22:31
Location: Leichhardt, NSW

Re: Facial Reconstruction

Postby Walter Glover » 10 Aug 2020, 21:05

On the subject of the eyes, I think that key elememt that shifts this image from merely "clinical documentation" to "visual statement" is the incorporation of the two pen marks approximating pupils. For the sitter's sake, I hope the pressure of the pen was was on a bench top prios to applying the bandage, and not directly onto the super-sensitive peepers. BRAVO to the sitter for her dedication to the artistic expression Maris had to make!!
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant

User avatar
Maris
Posts: 882
Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Re: Facial Reconstruction

Postby Maris » 11 Aug 2020, 11:40

Walter, what an extraordinary reading: "two pen marks approximating pupils". I never thought of that most evocative implication. The truth is more prosaic. The "pupils" are actually little eye-holes cut out of the crepe bandage.

Walter Glover
Posts: 1270
Joined: 31 Jul 2012, 22:31
Location: Leichhardt, NSW

Re: Facial Reconstruction

Postby Walter Glover » 12 Aug 2020, 04:53

Thanks for the clarificarion, Maris. Nevertheless they do contribute significantly to the visually to the narrative for mr becuse without the the motif becomes a mummy (no offence). The need to see iis a signifier of life. Again harking back to my notion of the power of minimal visual clues. I fing this a truly wonderful image where the perfect description of the lens shows not only 'the thing itself; but also what else it can be. A bit of an exho, in a strange way perhaps, f Minor White?
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant


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