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Fluidism Diary
Artist Robert Kernodle
email image portfolio
most recent entry
This diary springs from The Omicron Diary.
03-19-2007 - Creating and Discovering
As often happens, insight comes during the most unlikely times, in the most unlikely places. Many required elements can be together already, but some important element is missing to connect them. Then unexpectedly, a particular circumstance asserts itself, resutling in an "aha! moment" of unity and discovery.
For some time, I have known about the forms that only now I am beginning to focus on. Over the years of experimenting, I have seen such forms appear and elusively retreat, with no hope of capturing them. Until recently, I have had no means of capturing them. More honestly, I have had the means for months, but I have been missing a key realization about how to use it.
In one day, everything has come together fairly naturally and painlessly.
On a sunny morning, I started deciding... do this, do that, adjust this, adjust that,... actually, not so much "deciding" as DOING............ based on instincts implanted by all previous efforts.
A puzzle is not finished by rethinking laboriously how every other piece fits together. Instead, the one final piece simply seems to fall into place as the only possible choice of fit. The resulting whole.. emerges as the only possible whole of the assemblege. No real thought, you see,... just reflexive action with the physical circumstances of that moment.
This has been the scenario for Fluidism PHASE IV, which came into being three days ago.
In a technological era of phenomenal image-making (especially in the movie film industry), the nature of my individual discovery seems down right antique and miniscule. On the other hand, it goes to show that the creative spirit does not need the resources of a Dreamworks Studio to thrive and give greater meaning to life.
The creative spirit has its own schedule and resources wherever and whenever it occurs. It claims and employs what it can to stay alive. This is the nature of fulfillment: A creative life in the everyday does not need that much. It needs basic exercise of the senses in their higher capacities,... an opening to continual possibilities all around, even if nothing significant happens,... a calm readiness to act if opportunity presents itself (which it never may).
Fluidism started in a kitchen sink, and now it continues in a big cereal bowl,... the same one in which I eat most of my meals. My set-up is the most basic, unassuming, pathetic, make-do rig imaginable: the bowl, a dusty old fan with broken handle, a large window that serves as light source on clear days between certain hours, a modest 35mm single-lense-reflex film camera with tripod, tap water, generic store-bought canola oil, acrylic paint remnants accumulated or saved for several years, solitude, curiousity, patience, and a discerning eye.
What a priviledge it is! ... to be safe from war, sufficiently clothed, nourished and healthy enough to contemplate greasy water! I laugh at people who think that they need so much more.
I do my creative tasks as a citizen of the wealthiest nation on Earth, a nation of "the American Dream", which (in many cases) is just that (a vaporous dream), since financial barriers are causing even greater economic rifts between supposed rich and supposed poor segments of its society.
In all this self-sustaining, spoiled-child, economic-class disparity, my only dream is for people to leave me alone to do what feels right for my being each day,... whether this is taking a quiet walk, enjoying fair weather, doing pull-ups and yoga in the park, sitting by myself thinking or doing nothing at all except feeling the satisfaction of being alive.
This is my standard of living, which is king-like by third-world standards, while bum-like by popular American standards. Fluidism PHASE IV has evolved from such a standard.
Again I laugh, because wealth is such a relative concept. A person's greatest wealth is the ability to find something positive and interesting,... then try to ecourage others to do the same. A large enough collection of such people then becomes society's greatest wealth, because, from positive interest in life, everything else of of true value grows.
03-20-2007 - What's the Real Artifact?
In previous phases of Fluidism, I have insisted that a real liquid substrate is the artifact, or, more precisely, the real dried residue is the actual artifact.
Evaporation has been the means of "freezing" dynamic fluid patterns into a prolonged time frame for extended viewing. Now I am in a quandary as to whether the real fluid substrate is any longer the actual art.
Is the photographic relic (in context of memory about the real fluid substrate) now the actual art?
Photographic recording (in a sense) has replaced physical drying as the "freezing" agent, and any actual physical relic no longer exists, so something real is missing. A photographic record is only a secondary reproduction,... lacking the infinite depth of originality found in Fluidism's previous phases.
This photographic version is no longer Fluidism in its purest sense. This photographic version is a related cousin, which I could call "Photo-fluidism", but will NOT, because (even though profound) the distinction is subtle.
I now realize that, here, the real art lies in a specific wet moment which transcends actual capture. The real art cannot exist past this one unique moment,... so, a photograph is the best I can do to capture any residue of this real liquid event.
Fluidism PHASE IV is a paint/photography symbiosis (or a fluid-substrate/film-photography symbiosis) capturing significant structural elements of one-time-only dynamic form NO LONGER EXISTING. Original art transcends its own capture, while a photograph transcends the moment of the true original, thus becoming the only immanent relic of an otherwise evaporated reality.
03-21-2007 - Cataloging and Labeling
Several Thoughts:
(1) Since I now regard every form as a unique expressive aspect of the same fluid reality, the title, Aspect, is the only title I have to make up ever again. All the works of Fluidism PHASE IV, thus, will be called Aspect, with a number to indicate order of occurance.
(2) Given the size of photographic transparencies, I momentarily have solved storage and handling problems with my larger, resource-demanding paper, wood, canvas works. Also, I momentarily have eased my concern about cluttering the world with such resource-demanding, storage-demanding works. Fluidism PHASE IV will allow me to store 200 works in the thickness of an inch, and in the space of a small drawer, with no excessive paints lingering past their times of use. Digital photography would be yet another tier of space and resource conservation. I am not there yet.
(3) How do I label my medium? - "Acrylic, water, canola oil, cereal bowl, sunshine, 35mm transparency-film photography"..?
"Mixed media"..?
"Photography mixed media"..?
"Dimensions variable, depending on print request"..?
"Artist - not so much me as nature"..?
"Date created - never; I just set up conditions and press a button, while watching the original create itself and slip into oblivion"..?
I ask myself what is the best truth compressed into the expected brevity of traditional labels.
I answer myself as follows:
CATEGORY - Painting and Photography
STYLE - Fluidism
DESCRIPTION - Fluid Flow Photography
ARTIST - Robert Kernodle
MEDIUM - Color-positive Photographic Film
DIMENSIONS - 24mm x 36mm
DATE - (year photo snapped)
03-31-2007 - Oil and Water Mixtures
Up til now, I have not considered the fact that oil is another major difference between PHASE IV and previous fluidism phases.
A significant chemical difference is in play here - NOT just water, but OIL and water...... oil-and-water mixtures,... or lack of mixture,... which gives rise to particularly distinctive forms that I have not worked with before.
These forms exist everywhere right under our noses, but I only now am getting around to framing them in a context that makes them art.
In everyday thinking, the big deal I am making over greasy water might seem funny. Everybody knows that oil and water do not mix. Yes, the general observation of this fact is NO big deal.
Zoom in closer, however, and artistic fascination makes a little more sense. We see that incompatibility can be a fundamental principle of form building. A lattice of intriguing structure grows from such incompatibility. There seems to be a type of incompatibility that is not bad. The most essentially basic revelation of yin/yang glows straight into our awareness. We see the universe in a bowl.
04-01-2007 - Specific Shapes Observed
What I am seeing consistently are formations of little spheres within bigger spheres, or little spheres within bigger circular pools that I guess would be spheres too, if not for gravity.
Spheres within spheres can form within a mass of two liquids that are incompatible at mixing homogeneously together. Without seeing this, I would not have predicted it.
There is continuity in this two-liquid pool, yet this continuity is fragmented into perfect little spheres somehow separated out of it. A boundary or form-defining membrane still connects the two liquids.
The cause of these sphere formations is MOTION of gentle stirring. Now I wonder whether I am capturing air (a third fluid) to create these little quantum balls.
Maybe I should be thinking of a three-fluid system - OIL, WATER, AIR. Yes,... a hierarchy of fluid densities. Am I seeing Lebau's Sorce Theory substantially revealed before my own eyes?
04-02-2007 - Metaphors
Why is the mind so fast to make comparisons between unrelated things? Why do we make these sensual sets? - metaphors - which (in effect) place one realization inside or outside the sphere of another?
Even in my asking this question, I effortlessly fall into an attempt at metaphor (i.e., "separate realizations are spheres within spheres of the same liquid").
Why is understanding so fulfilling in metaphors?... Maybe because we have no other option in a universe where all is one ocean to begin with. All of being speaks through us. All of being speaks through each of its aspects,... like motion of a great current jostling molecules into relationships with one another.
04-03-2007 - Speed of Production
I am making images fast. A decent number of these images seem pleasing to my eye.
I see no immediate end to the possible variety,... which means that I can make hundreds and hundreds of images.
I am not a real painter now. I am a witness. I am an idiot pressing a button, while the real art is being done by creative forces greater than me.
04-05-2007 - Science of Oil/Water
Art consciousness leads to science consciousness and back again.
Seeing the aesthetically pleasing forms of oil-water interactions makes me ask why? Why do oil and water not mix?
The answer, as I understand it, is that water molecules have positive and negative ends, while oil molecules have positive and negative charges evenly distributed,... so no poles like water.
Water molecules are polar. Oil molecules are NOT polar. Water's polar molecules stick together with their kind, while oil molecules float together with their kind. The effect is a non-mixing partnership of sorts.
Polarity (a type of conflict) begets form. Water is the most ubiquitous polar substance on Earth. Water is the essential terrestrial form-creating catalyst.
04-06-2007 - Coloring Oil
Yesterday I felt compelled to find or make colored liquid oils.
I searched a local art-supply store, purchased some reduced-priced thick art oil paint in tubes, and mixed small batches of three colors, using my cheap grocery-store canola oil for a thinning medium.
Since permanence in the actual fluid is not an issue, canola oil seems to work. I simply trash the colored glazes of this oil, after they muddy beyond further use.
I like how these temporary glazes are performing. I do not yet see the spherical phenomena that I see with acrylic paint.
I started experimenting with manipulation - stretching oil blobs with the point of a kitchen knife - blowing to move oil pools into the camera's field of view - tilting the bowl of liquid to cause subtle runs and to reposition streams - vigorously jostling blobs and trying to snap the photo in mid recoil of oil masses resuming equilibrium shapes.
There seems to be a place of optimal tension between creation and destruction where the most interesting formations occur. This optimal place somehow must be tuned critically to human form,... or else why would I find it so interesting?
04-08-2007 - Type of Lighting
Any photography article I ever have read steers readers away from direct, mid-day sunshine.
My eyes, however, tell me differently. With respect to fluidism photography, direct, high sun seems to bring out the most pleasing drama in highlights.
I have not been in a good position to try lower sun angles. Also, a lower sun angle causes shadow from the bowl's wall above the liquid surface - maybe something to play with in itself.
04-11-2007 - Visual Appeal of Living Processes
Who would guess that oily, colored water contains such interesting secrets? Who would guess that a universe of otherworldly geometry can exist in a puddle?
At ordianry distances of observing, at ordinary speeds and colors of liquids, we do not see fantastic forms all around us. In many cases, we see clear through them.
A camera frames, freezes, flattens and focuses light in ways that human eyes ordinarily cannot. We might say that the camera creates this fantastic vision. Such an assertion, however, would give far too much credit to the camera and not nearly enough credit to its subject.
Without something special already in the subject itself, the camera merely would amplify the dullness of it.
Consider that 70% of Earth's surface is liquid,... 60% of the human body is liquid,... also the first and third most abundant substances in the known universe (hydrogen and oxygen) comprise liquid of the human body and its planet Earth,... plus oil-water mixtures are the breeding grounds of all life as we know it.
Consider further that all spiritual traditions of the globe revere liquid water as the most sacred substance,... citing it (without fail) as the prime source in creation stories.
This alone, once realized, might lead us to suspect that amazing formations are happening in the liquid state. It might lead us to anticipate outstanding fingerprints in the liquid birthground of sentient lifeforms.
Now it seems to make sense why formally revealed structures of the liquid state have visual appeal. Such structures reconnect us with our very origins,... even more, with the geometrical foundations of reality itself. Images of such structures can touch us at the most visceral, nonverbal level of consciousness.
So far, I have produced 180 images, and most of them support what I say here,... at least in my own eyes.
04-12-2007 - Technical Difficulties
Sunshine through the window used as my lighting source is getting blocked gradually by spring growth of nearby trees. Even today's perfectly cloudless sky was hindered by branches and new leaves, amplified by the seasonal changing sun angle.
As a result, I had to move my set-up outside, across town to my sister's back yard. Here I am sandwiched between a thicket of tall trees and what amounts to a moat with fence on its other side. This moat is a huge oval drainage ditch (200 feet diameter by 15 feet deep) that we call "the swamp".
Near an old, weather-battered storage house, I stacked three rusty paint cans to serve as my level bowl support. I ran a 100-foot hose to the spot as my water source. I used a homemade discarded table as work bench for paint viles, oil and paper towels. I set my notepad on a dilapidated fork-lift crate nearby.
I cursed the wind (extremely windy) for blowing tiny debris into my staging bowl, repositioning the stack of paint cans beside the storage house's door (rusted off its hinges and leaned against one side). This solved that problem.
Then I worried that direct mid-day sun might fry my film inside the black camera casing, so I tried to shade it when possible.
There always seems to be a challenge beyond the specific creative challenge. Circumstances of the preparation and set-up have to be overcome. Time has to be set aside. The mind has to be freed. The body has to be maintained in a healthy condition.
Nothing really is guaranteed to work, so it's always a triumph when focused effort pays off.
04-14-2007 - Life Origin Theories
Sometimes a corner glare or an edge glare from intense, direct sun can ruin an otherwise good shot. The trick is to find fields of view where overly glaring effects are not there. This keeps the image frame more balanced and consistent, enabling the eye to remain properly occupied over the whole scene.
I find myself wondering about theories on the origin of life. A quick review reveals that there is a bubble theory involving oil-water mixtures as the basis of primordial living cells. I thought that my memory of this was correct, when I implied it in my fluidism description.
The bubble theory of life's origin seems important, because it supports the idea that fluidism is the art of life itself. When people say, "Life is an art", they do not realize how deep this truth might go.
04-17-2007 - Educational Links
Aquatic Physics
Lipids
Lipid Polymorphism Self-Assembly
Bubble Genesis of Life
Bubble Theory
04-25-2007 - Sorting and Categorizing
A week and a half has passed since I looked at any of the last 200 or so slides I snapped. I already had sorted them roughly into two categories: "favorites" and "other".
I seem to see a progression in quality by my third session of thirty-six shots, although my most recent session seems below par in comparison to all previous sessions. Also, some of what I judged as "other" rose to "favorites", after my eyes had time to cool off from original first impressions.
I now have done a second sorting, arriving at a group of images that my eyes see as the best selections of everything I have done so far.
Soon I will move onward with more experimenting and more shooting.
05-02-2007 - Different Lighting
As mentioned earlier, seasonal changing sun has rendered my previous window light source non-existent. Midmorning direct sunlight, however, shines through a pair of smaller windows on a perpendicular wall. This gives me about an hour, where I am chasing a stream of direct light, as the sun moves higher towards the zenith.
I tried my first session under these conditions today. I also tried warmer colors than usual. Red, orange and violet were the choices.
With four shots left, I decided that I had exhausted the bowl possibilities for today,... but there was another thing I wanted to try: I always keep cooked brown rice in my refrigerator, still in the pot, with a plastic bag between lid and base. This causes water beading on the plastic, which interests me. Those four remaining shots were used trying to frame and focus on this beading close up.
05-03-2007 - Repooling Makes Better Patterns
The most attractive liquid patterns happen whenever I pour out the bowl's contents and allow the remaining film to resettle, readjust and restabalize. Gravity, slope and contour of the bowl achieve a best harmony. Forces within the liquid itself seem to sculpt a best equilibrium shape, which translates into maximum visual appeal.
This is really dramatic to my eyes. I pour out the contents, then a stream sticking to the bowl's inside flows into a pool or distributed arrangement that, moments before, was not nearly so striking.
What happens while I only wait is amazing to me. I do nothing. I wait. Then this best harmony of shape, color, balance and contrast just happens. It happens too slowly to see the motion of its progression. I have to glance away, take a break, stay patient and reexamine. When I look back, the best arrangement is simply there.
If I wait too long, then the best moment is gone, because too much merging and remixing happens. I know this, because I have tried waiting past what initiallly I thought was the best arrangement, only to see a more disappointing version after the time of this peak arrangement.
The art here is in sensing how long to pause,... an instinct developed mainly through trial and error.
05-04-2007 - Some Sessions Produce Nothing
Slides from my 05-02-2007 session are not very impressive. I trashed most of them.
Those few with greatest promise have uneven lighting. On second look, I am more accepting of them, but I know even lighting could have made these images more stunning.
Now I see that on a tilt, the bowl's sides do not reflect light equally all around its circumferance.
05-06-2007 - Body Woes and Challenging Light
A significantly sprained right knee did not stop me from meneuvering (with crutches) through another session today.
I tried interjecting 1000 watts of halogen light into less bright areas,... to no avail, since sunshine far overpowers it by comparison.
Also, I tried something a little different by mixing oil paint and acrylic paint in the usual water-oil base pool. I am not confident that I captured anything memorable.
05-07-2007 - Dynamics of Oil Movement
Drizzling oil on water causes the oil to distribute into perfect circular pools of varying sizes. If undisturbed, the separate circular pools absorb one another into progressively bigger circular pools, until eventually they all merge into one large mass.
If the oil mass is disturbed by stirring, then it divides into globs that stretch, morph, recoil and regroup into an even more interesting network of circles. The most appealing shapes (to me) happen while the blobs are moving, morphing and resuming circular shapes.
These moving, morphing pools can squeeze into thin filaments, curved bulbous protrusions and other arrangements or shapes that I can only describe as "French curves gone wild".
I think I will try to exploit this behavior in my next session.
05-08-2007 - Challenging Weather and Technical Observations
This morning began as a consistent cloudy day, so I positioned the cheap 1000-watt halogen lights as my main lighting source. Unfortunately, the weather was unstable. Consistent light did not last. Sun began playing between the clouds, causing sun-powered shadows that a 1000 watts could not overcome. I ditched the halogen lights again, and tried using ambient daylight through the windows.
Wind-blown clouds caused daylight levels to fluctuate wildly. This was frustrating, because when I took a gray-card reading using the camera's internal meter in total auto, switched to manual and set this adjusted reading,... I would see the light level drastically change before I could snap the shot.
Today's whole session probably was a crap shoot because of this. Maybe I got someting, maybe not.
In terms of container, I switched to a shallower, square, glass dish with rounded corners and straight sides. This reduced shadows cast by the container's walls.
In terms of liquid, I tried to exploit the dynamic form-morphing behavior mentioned in yesterday's entry. Doing this, I made an important observation: The thinner the oil glazes, the better they float in circular globs. Thicker glazes tend to sink, so I have to coax them to the surface with a knife point to blend with the thinner ones already floating.
05-09-2007 - Unexpected Success and Total Failure
Slides from my 05-06-2007 session had some impressive captures - better than I would have predicted. Of course, I trashed a percentage of the whole batch too.
Slides from yesterday's session (05-08-2007) had nothing worth saving. I threw them all in the trash. Too dark. Too blurry. Or just too uninteresting.
I forgot about the effects of low light, slow film and slower shutter speeds on moving subjects. Hence, the blurr. As for the underexposed slides, I obviously did not sync with the rapid light-level changes of yesterday's weather.
Learning absolutely requires throwing both time and money down the proverbial drain.
05-13-2007 - Mixed Lighting Experiment
I waited until midafternoon to set up today's session. Weather was variably sunny. By this time, when NO strong sun shines through my windows, I can use the even, ambient daylight as background lighting.
I enhanced this ambient daylight with a 1000-watts of halogen light, continuing to use my usual daylight slide film. This goes against the rules (as I understand them), which say do NOT mix different light sources. Nonetheless, I want to see the effects for myself. Wrong or not, if it turns out to my liking, then it writes a new rule for my specific application.
I shot today's whole session in mixed lighting,... at exposure settings 1/2 and 1 stop above a gray-card reading according to the camera's internal meter, which I transferred to the manual mode of the same camera for taking the shot.
I used purple, red and deep blue colored oil glazes on water. Near the end, I added bright green oil, together with some acrylic violet and aqua. Nothing outstanding seemed to happen. This might be another crap shoot.
I am beginning to think that acrylic in the mix makes the most consistently impressive images. Sunlight too seems to be a prime element of this same consistency.
Oil, water, colored oil glazes, acrylic colors and sunlight might be the invariable ensemble to use in this style.
05-15-2007 - Egg Whites and Other Refinements
I woke up this morning to a perfectly sunny day. I could not let this light slip away without using it, so I quickly got my act together for an unplanned session. All my previous thinking kicked in, and I knew what I had to do.
Placing two room-temperature egg whites into the tilted bowl, I added a little water, a drop or two of acrylic color to tint, then several colored oils on top of this,
Beautiful blending of pools started to happen, with a little tweaking by me using a knife point. I hope that my camera exposures were on target. If not, then I missed some great images.
I am not sure how big a role the egg whites played in this liquid performance, but I will use them again just to be safe.
As I proceeded further into this morning's session, I manipulated colored oil pools on the surface, beating in more plain oil and acrylic color later, which caused the now-familiar spheres to appear.
Earlier, I saw the appearance of what I think might be delicate bilayer structures - tiny filamentous edges of sheets folded into a complex network.
At one point, what I saw through my camera viewfinder... I can only describe as cosmic, candy-land, planetary greenscapes. "Magically delicious"!
05-16-2007 - Recent Results
The mixed lighting session of 05-13-2007 was mostly a bust. An expected yellow cast over the whole series of shots difinitely displeases me,... so the rule book was vindicated in this case. Still, I kept a few of the most interesting images. Photo editing possibly could save them, if ever I got into that.
As for the formations in the images,... (as expected) nothing really stood out - everything seemed fairly mundane.
Yesterday's session (05-15-2007), by comparison, was mostly a success. In over half the shots, the field of view was very dark, so I might have done better to go yet another 1/2 stop more exposed, on top of what I already did. Maybe not. I like the rich depth of ultramarine blue that I used, which came out fairly true in these images.
One problem that I noticed was a corner of bright area competing with the rich blue darkness. A simple solution would be to blacken this out, in order to keep the eyes completely involved with the relative contrasts in the overall darker scene.
05-18-2007 - Egg Yellow in the Mix
Another perfectly clear sunny morning. What better way to start a session than with the egg yellows that I saved from my previous egg-white experiment, three days ago.
A few drops of acrylic teal and water turned the beaten egg yellows into a pleasant yellow-green goo.
On top of this, I used oil colors and acrylic colors freely and randomly within my chosen palette - pouring, dripping, beating with a knife point, manipulating a bubble or two into a better position within the camera's field of view - pouring out the bowl's entire contents, observing the residue and its resettling, quickly adding more colors and plain oil to the residue - tilting, rotating, repositioning the bowl under the camera, and waiting for the perfect moment to snap a shot, as the liquid found its best configuration.
I feel good about this session.
05-21-2007 - Alcohol and Oil
A tighter, delineated membrane seemed to form between oil and alcohol. The familiar spherical globs seemed very sharp and defined, with slower degradation than when in water.
I liked everything that I saw through the lense today. If exposures were right, then I should have good results.
There are so many possibilities for beauty, all slightly different, none of which ever recurs exactly.
My oil-to-pigment ratios are never exactly the same, nor are my acrylic-to-medium ratios exactly the same. This variation contributes to each situation's novelty.
05-22-2007 - Best Exposure
Results from 05-18-2007 were good. I now feel that I know the best exposure settings for my particular conditions and time of day. Having bracketed shots at 1/2 and 1 stop above the gray-card reading, I saw that a full 1 stop overexposed consistently.
About half the shots were acceptable exposures, in my judgement. Four of these were the best representatives of this day's session.
Bubble Surface Color Symphony
Thinking of other directions that I might want to explore, I ran tap water into a crystal drinking glass, then dropped oil on top to watch how it sank and resurfaced. Of course, this reminded me of a lava lamp. There is only a brief instant to snap a photo here, so I would have to hone my timing to catch the best moments.
My most fascinating observation happened when I washed the glass with dish soap. I noticed how sunlight accentuated intersections of bubble surfaces. At critical angles, I noticed the beautiful play of colors across these thin bubble films. Dynamic, moving, scintillating, turbulent patterns danced over the membranes. No added pigments,... just natural sunlight being cut by a breeze into a spectral color symphony. Can I capture this at some future date?
05-23-2007 - Further Exposure Insights
I saw results from 05-21-2007 today. Again, four representative shots stood out as the picks of the day.
Yesterday's comment about the best exposure setting now seems premature. As it turns out, the 1-stop above gray-card setting seemed better (in some cases) where particularly dark colors dominated the field of view. Consequently, I feel compelled always to shoot at both settings, until I develop a better sense for when to use one, rather than the other settting.
I seem to be having a slight depth-of-field problem with deeper formations. I do not see everything as sharp as I want to. Can I solve this with my present lense, or do I need a different lense? Can I get better results at f/11 or f/16? I need to devote a whole session to testing one stable deep formation with these different aperture priorities.
05-24-2007 - Different Apertures
Today I experimented with f/11 and f/16 exposure settings, alternating equally between the two, until the session was done. I shot each fluid formation with both apertures for comparison.
05-25-2007 - Better Resolution
Results from yesterday were very good. I seemed to notice a difference in resolution overall, especially at f/16 on deepest shots aimed down the bowl's side.
Between the two apertures themselves, the differences were not obvious until those deepest shots. At f/16, intricate cellular structure was much better resolved, while at f/11, this structure still was moderately blurry.
Sometimes a slight blurring of the brightest highlights at f/11 seemed more fulfilling than crystal clear sunshine spots revealed at f/16. At a future date, I want to try the smallest aperture that my camera set-up allows, which currently is f/22.
Of particular interest was a large oil bubble with an extremely complex, fillamentous, sponge-like network of cells and canals, containing what reminded me of kidneys, bladders and other minute organs in a jellyfish. This formation evolved and lost integrity fast, so I had only a small window of opportunity to catch it on film.
05-30-2007 - Fluidism - Word Definition
If someone asked me how I adopted the word, "fluidism", and why I came to prefer it, then I would give the following answer:
Fluidism word definition
06-10-2007 - Book Review
Scientifically questionable, with conveniently forced analogies, The Miracle of Water by Masaru Emoto (English translation by David A. Thayne) nevertheless charms you.
You want to believe its claims.
Possibly a little too dripping with sweet spiritual sentiments for some people, it reads simply and fast enough to be explored by everyone.
Yes, it smacks of child-like innocence and purist ideals. Yes, it pushes the envelope of technical believability, even contriving facts that are unsubstantiated by strict experimental controls.
Evenso, the book does precisely what its author professes, which is impart positive resonance to a negative era.
06-11-2007 - Pool-shaped Platforms for New Possibilities
My tilted bowl restricts its liquid contents to a pool of specific shape, where the pool surface is a flat plane with uniquely curved perimeter.
Yesterday, I decided to make a cardboard copy of this curved plane to serve as a platform (in the bowl) on which to stage liquid events. I used remnants of thick archival board from previous phases of fluidism.
Today, by soaking this mock pool surface to the point of forming a very thin liquid film, I experimented with pure surface flow minus sinking effects caused by greater depth.
I revisited my old technique, except in my new set-up, ... also adding oil, which I never did in this earlier technique.
The bowl's sides act as an ampitheatre and as a convex light reflector - forming the perfect little stage to create AND to photograph little paintings.
This is a netherworld between different phases of fluidism - one, where actual fluid substrate is artwork, and two, where photography of this substrate is artwork. Here I have to decide whether to keep the dried relic or (hopefully) to discard it as transitional residue of the photographic wet capture.
Today's efforts were only for experimenting, with no photos.
The now mostly-dried relic still has visual appeal. It is a lopsided oval (6" x 4/12") with random color blends and random spotting caused by oil globules.
06-22-2007 - Globe Diffuser and Starch Water
Today I tried something that I have been thinking about for three days. It involved a frosted-white globe usually used in electric light fixtures - a transluscent, white, glass sphere with a four-inch hole in it.
I sat this sphere on top a clear glass coffee pot, which (in turn) sat inside the usual white cereal bowl, thereby creating a white parabolic reflector around a glass spherical chamber in which I placed my various fluids.
Sunlight hit the sphere (and reflector bowl) full-on, thus creating an umbrella of diffuse light over the liquid pool inside the sphere.
While photographing this pool, I noticed excessive light reflection from interior sphere walls, as the sun angle increased. The quantity of reflection at this angle washed out the sharpness of images I saw through my viewfinder. My interval of useful sunlight seems even smaller with this set-up.
Today I also used a 50/50 ratio of liquid starch and water as my base pool. This caused very fine filament patterns in thinned acrylic paint that I dropped into the base pool. Plain water (by comparison) showed immediate smooth dispersal of paint, with no fine filaments. I was a little disappointed that most of the paint drops still sank in starch water. Maybe if I poured paint more carefully, closer to the pool surface (without abrupt impact), less sinking would happen. Of course, I would have to figure out how to do this through only a four-inch hole, since my hand would not fit. Maybe a drinking straw.
06-25-2007 - Spherical Chamber Results
Results from 06-22-2007 were fair. Exposures might have been a touch on the bright side. Interior sphere reflection by the pool surface inside the sphere became problematic.
I am not certain whether this reflection resulted from the gradually increasing sun angle throughout the session, or whether this is a limitation of the sphere set-up when the floating masses of paint become suffieciently large enough to become a significant reflective pool. I think that when the pool becomes reflective enough, it begins to refect the white sphere interior, thereby diluting the image.
From today's session, I chose four or five of my favorite images. The remainder seemed average or unremarkable.
I want to create images that are more stunning. I will try this set up again.
06-26-2007 - Bowl, Starch-Water, Hazy Sun
Lighting conditions were challenging today, varying between as many as five different settings, because of continually changing cloud cover.
I need this challenge, in order to improve my expertise.
I used 50/50 starch/water as base pool in the tilted bowl. I made pool shots, run shots down the bowl's side (after bowl's contents were emptied), plus shots of my set-up.
Familiar patterns formed, but still different enough form all previous ones to make the session worthwhile. I always seem to find a new combination of angle, closeness, color, depth, and framing.
Results from today were good. Some obvious over-exposures stood out as wrong. A couple over-exposures worked. Some of what my eye found intriguing through the viewfinder might not be so intriguing on the slide (I'm not sure, I'll have to get other opinions).
I am trying to be very critical,... relentlessly editing, choosing only the best three or four shots per session.
Typically, I examine slides on the slide table where I get film developed, making two groups on the spot. I then bring them home, examine again and confirm favorites by daylight. At night, I hold them up against incandescent light to confirm again. The next morning, I look again in daylight. By the fouth fresh examination, I usually have settled on my best choices.
06-29-2007 - Light Threads and Bubble Shadows
A combination of factors today revealed pronounced effects that I have not seen before.
Factors were: (1) the color density of oil glazes, (2) clear plain water, (3) maximally intense morning sun, and (4) minimal use of the colored glazes.
Effects were: (1) very thin circular or elliptical oil pools that cast strong gray shadows overpowering their causative pools, (2) tiny threads of white light caused by varyingly reflective and transparent overlapping edges of oil/water interfaces, and (3) a combination of shadows, thin light threads and colored pools collectively forming a unique composition.
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