A year back, I was a part of a Getty exhibition with other creative and talented photographers I have the pleasure of knowing and meeting. The theme of our work was "Play" with the medium being alternative photo processes.
We each had our choice of what alternative photo process we wanted to work on. The last time I did an alternative process work was many years back in high school. It was a cyanotype of a flower and cyanotypes are pretty easy to produce but I had grander plans for my work. With the research I did on alternative processes, I really wanted to do a daguerreotype, but having no experience with the medium and the technical difficulties of producing daguerreotypes put me off. That and the thought of working with mercury fumes scared the shit out of me. So I opted to do something a bit easier and feasible to produce, given the materials I was willing to work with, which ended up being gum bichromate prints. A fairly easy process but it isn't a cake walk either.
Tackling a photo to represent the theme was a bit of a challenge. Images of kids playing, or just the act of play itself (sports, games etc.), were easy to come by because, they're easy to shoot. I didn't want to do easy. At least not until I was desperate enough to use those ideas. It wasn't until halfway till deadline did it come to me. I figured, if the theme was play, I could just have fun with it and do a photo I would never think of doing.
One day I was walking in the hills not too far from where I lived. I was with a couple of friends and as we're trekking, I zoned out, thinking about nothing but the project which would be due very soon. I saw this field of yellow grass that shined like gold as the light hit it during golden hour. Far in the background was a lone tree that was dark which gave good contrast to the scene I loved immediately. The more I observed the scene, the more my imagination ran. "Wouldn't it be crazy if some man beast were running through this scene?" I want to shoot a nude satyr running through this field. I loved it. It was settled. Who would model for such a photo that I knew? At face value, none, so I just threw it out there and asked one of my friends if he was willing to do this. It took some coaxing, a bit of pressure and I may have begged at one point. Who could blame anyone for being cautious when their friend essentially requests that "I need you to go at least half naked and do this thing for a photo project I was working on." Eventually my friend did agree to it. I think it was the begging.
So a week passes after the agreement was made, and we're back at the same location, at the same time. I wanted the same exact moment to now be filled by a half naked man running through the grass. The idea was to imply nudity (because if it was actual nudity, "no" would be a definite reaction from whoever I asked) so I bought nude colored tights, which he begrudgingly put on. Obviously he was regretting the decision he made but no take backsies is illegal. It's in one of the verses I read somewhere.
As I'm shooting my friend doing whatever it was I told him to do so that I could get enough images to work with, two women were hiking on the trail and as they came closer to us, they saw me with the camera, and then they saw my half naked friend wearing a goat mask, hiding within the grass. One of them shrieked and said something along the lines of "oh my god! It looks like a scene out of American Horror Story!" and proceeded to pull out her cell phone to take a photo of this scene here that I shot.
This photo didn't make the cut. This was taken with black and white film, and one can do a two color gum print (this one would've been a black and white print) but I used a digital camera for the project. It was efficient for the time I had left and the complexity of gum prints. Not sure why I shot this on black & white film exactly. At the time, there may have been an idea to shoot black and white but in hindsight, I probably did it for shits and giggles. Or blackmail.
"Satyr in the grass" / 35mm Ilford Delta 3200 / March 2015