Theda Bara photo #2

I think this photo - probably a studio publicity still - is absolutely beautiful. The use of black and white, and the downward diagonal of her form, from upper right to lower left, is wonderful, IMHO. The success of her 1915 film, A Fool There Was, allowed producer William Fox to found Fox Film Corporation, and the success of her following films insured his success. A Fool There Was is one of the four feature films (not including two short comedies) that exist today, out of the 40 feature films that she made during her career. What I would not give to see her cinematic treatments of Carmen, The Vixen, and, of which only a tantalizing 40 seconds of which exist today, Cleopatra.

A femme fatale role model - Theda Bara

Not to be dismissed as mere 'cheesecake' imagery; this was one of hollywood's earliest and most popular femme fatales. The on-screen persona of Theda Bara - whose real name was Theodosia Burr Goodman - was built up to be the very essence of exotic mystery, but she was actually born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1885. Her eventual screen popularity was second only to Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Her sometimes risque pre-Hays code costumes only added to her reputation. What also contributes to her legend today is that the vast majority of her silent films (made between 1914 and 1926) were destroyed in a fire in 1937. There is a very wide tonal range in this photograph, from a value of almost complete white, to dark black. She has a very interesting photographic persona.

link to webpage - didn't know how to upload animated GIF(?) file

I wish I knew how to upload an animated GIF (?) file, but I don't, so you will need to follow this link:

http://lala.cursivebuildings.com/tagged/reaching

Stereophotographs, or stereograms, or stereocards, are two photographs taken side-by-side, separated by approximately the distance between the human eyes, and used to simulate human binocular depth perception, on a flat surface, using a special viewer. Sir Charles Wheatstone is credited with inventing the first stereophotographic images in 1840. For a number of decades, they were quite popular with the public, and stereocards and stereoviewers were all the rage. They were later updated to the plastic 3-D viewers and circular cards with minaturized photographic slide-like inserts. What is so appealing about so many of the stereocards to me now, is the historical quality of the photographs. The gentleman at the above-listed website came up with a clever way to somewhat duplicate their qualities on a regular computer monitor, without the need of the original 3-D viewer. I believe he uses an an animated GIF file. Apparently he overlays one of the images on top of the other one, and uses animation features to switch back and forth between the two images, very quickly, so that the brain puts it together as a single image, which creates the illusion of depth, without the special viewer. Because the points of view are slightly different, however, the brain also perceives a slight 'wobble', and the slight differences between the two images also tends to make the lighting 'flicker'. I am extremely intrigued by these images. I am very interested in history, and physical reminders of the past, and I think that these images are absolutely fascinating. The flickering quality of the light gives one the impression that one is watching a video clip of very early moving picture images. I would like to learn how to do this technique. I have a few older stereocards in storage somewhere, and I haven't been able to find them yet. Meh!...

back cover for book assignment

I really like the composition of this rear matchbook cover, as well as the slogan, 'Where the sunshine spends the winter'.

pages 10-11 of book

Another result of enlarging images is being able to see more of the process of their manufacture, such as more visible 'half-tone' dots.

pages 8-9 of book

Some of these individually printed matches are just wonderful. There is an attention to detail in the 'grilling steak' matches that is hard to believe, especially when you have to assume that smokers probably didn't necessarily pay all that much attention after an initial glance. This is the only 2-page spread where I went with horizontal-vertical alignment, just for some more variety. I'm realizing that the word 'Phillumenism' might have to be spaced a little bit in the middle, pre-press, to allow people to read what is probably an unfamiliar word, although this 'booklet' will be thin enough that that might not be a problem.

pages 6-7 of book

I think that one can really start to appreciate the skillful graphic design and use of color in these matchbooks, when they are scanned, and greatly enlarged on the monitor. The 2-3 page spread had the imagery on the 'inside' of the spread, with text on the outside, so I was trying to reverse that with this layout.

pages 4-5 of book

The idea was to include some 2-page spreads of just images and background color.

pages 2-3 of book

This is mostly a 'visual' book, so even though I wanted to include a certain amount of text, I wanted the graphics to predominate. I also wanted the ability to play with different approaches to text alignment. Each line of text is a separate 'layer' in PhotoShop, which gives one a great deal of freedom in letter and word placement, but which is also a little labor-intensive.

create-a-book assignment - cover

I wanted to do something a little different for the cover, so I kept it a little plain (saving the graphics mostly for the inside), and moved the title to an edge where it would not normally be located. I wanted to use the texture of the 'strike strips', as well as include the staples, the slight tearing where the staple comes through, and the scuff marks of previous use, reminding the viewer of the physical act of abrading the match along the strike strip.