I want to make a series of composites where part of each image fades away, part stays constant, another part changes colour and maybe an undiscovered part comes forward, to represent the way memories change over time.
I have already done some where the composites blend differently and there’s colour change, but they didn’t have the fading component, or the newly emerging part.
Why can there be a newly emerging component?
Maybe when you discuss the memories with others a new perspective will emerge, or new information will come to light or even something you didn’t think of earlier will come into your mind at al ater date on reflection and the memory take on a new meaning.
An example
In my story about meeting a girl on a train when I’d been hitch-hiking in Canada, https://spaces.oca.ac.uk/wallet6/2023/05/20/thursday-nights/ I had a very simple, romantic view of the meeting: girl meets boy, parents smile benignly, boy is flattered, they cuddle under a blanket, she gives him a slip of paper with her name and contact details, he doesn’t contact her.
I was telling this story recently to someone, and realised I hadn’t scanned that slip of paper for inclusion (have I done it yet?). Then I thought more about the train encounter, particularly about the girl telling me her name and recognising my accent that she collected for Noraid in her home city in Canada. I think I was tired and I found her attractive and naiive, and nothing really further. I hadn’t my shield up as I would have done back home in Northern Ireland or England concerning terrorism at that time. When I thought about it recently, I could see that this encounter could be reinterpreted as an attempt to recruit me, or sound me out at least, for IRA sympathies. My simple romance memory could take on a whole new meaning. And this change had come about by me looking closely (taking Perec’s advice) at that slip of paper and seeing that the name written down is not the one I remembered her telling me, and me then reviewing the whole memory and discovering a potential new meaning for it.
How to do the fading?
The black mask can be painted on by a white brush in PS, or can we make a selection with a polyhedral and fill it with a gradient ? Did I do this with my cubism PSDs? I must check. I want to have a faded effect. With Topaz Studio? By burnishing or sandpapering the image manually? Or with a brush in PS? By lasso selections?
Can I use my current selection method and then fade the selections somehow (Blend modes? PS filters?) as well as affecting contrast and colour? <- I should look at this first
Cracked mirror
Is this a way of presenting an old image too, or the composites? It’s a bit like cubism.
Musing
I feel I’m still not working like an ‘artist’, I am still too logical and scientific in my approach. I am directing my work, maybe too much, although I don’t always or hardly ever, know what the outcome will be – trust the process and have fun!
