The Story Behind Every Photograph...November, 2020 - Power of Process Tips by Steve Sherman

This month’s Story Behind Every Photograph featured image is presented in a variation on keeping these Blog posts fresh and interesting to all. Social media is a slippery slope for sure, every now and then a sliver lining emerges. This month’s image came about when a photo colleague from the past reached out to me on social media in the hopes of acquiring this image. Read on to see both her motivation for the acquisition and mine for creating the image in the first place.

I am fortunate to live within a few miles of Wild Bill’s Nostalgia Shop in Middletown, CT. Sadly, the location is now defunct as William Ziegler, aka Wild Bill passed away in April of 2017. My interest in Wild Bills began 20 odd years ago when I would take workshop students to this location. The sweeping shapes and brightly colored graffiti translated to a full range of B&W tonalities and a quick return to the darkroom for processing and evaluation. As time progressed and a body of work from New York City’s graffiti formed for me, I began to take notice of images from Wild Bills originally made as development and printing examples for students. At the end of this Blog is the very first panoramic shot I made in 2004 contrasted by a cell phone shot I made just a few days prior to this Blog post.

The idea behind presenting this month’s image is my thought process in creating this image contrasted by the motivation and inspiration that moved a collector to acquire the image I created back in 2014. When I inquired with the collector about her thoughts behind purchasing the image, she graciously shared her thoughts below.

From Cynthia…”I’ve been thinking about the reasons why I’m attracted to your photo and the first thing that I connected with was the eye on the side of the bus. I correlated it with the Eye of God who is all seeing, then I noticed the hole in the bus window and that it was abandoned and I thought God does not abandon us even if it feels and looks to us like he has you have to find your inner strength and know God is always with you. This is the power of God the mighty, this is what I see in your image, I see strength among the wreckage”.

Long ago I had read the book Into the Wild, this bus at Wild Bills must have struck a subliminal chord with me. Jon Krakauer wrote about a 22 year old college graduate venturing off into Alaska wilderness back in 1992 to live off the land. In the story an abandoned bus was a central component of the critically acclaimed book (check in the upper right of above photo to see bus in Alaska wilderness). My composition became quite clear between the eyeball, black hole and backlit shattered glass. Fortunately by 2014 cell phones had evolved to a point where a satisfactory snapshot of the scene could provide a backdrop to illustrate a more complete “Story Behind Every Photograph.”

The image of the bus was definitely a different and interesting variation of this chaotic, yet ordered landscape on Wild Bill’s 45 acre plot of land. What gets lost in any type of screen rendering is the subtle textures and low value tonalities in original silver image. The dark backdrop to the eyeball has been printed darker so as to project the eyeball as brighter. Yet in those darker tones there are multiple subtle variations which provide unconscious levels of interest in the original print while still projecting a somewhat dimensional quality to the eyeball. As was stated in the collector’s thoughts, the whole in the glass, particularly the shattered effects and interaction of light adds an important secondary interest beyond the obvious eyeball for me personally !! The early morning sun does accentuate the shattered glass all the while creating a challenge in managing a higher contrast scene. Careful exposure and special film processing preserves the tonalities in a manageable negative for a final rendering on Silver Gelatin paper. I delivered the print earlier this week, seen here complete with the Back Story, and pertinent process details…Thank you Cynthia !!