OUR PLASTIC LIFE
I don’t love the smell of plastic in the morning, I’m sure neither do you. Quite frankly it’s disgusting at any time of the day. It gets into your nose and makes a home for itself. Before you know it, you never knew it was there. Tricky little bastard that plastic is.
But it does do some pretty cool things with light as I have found out this week. At work we have plastic temporarily installed as a structural diaper under the ceiling to prevent the garbage from the new roof installation from falling on our heads. On my way home from work the other day, I noticed a layer of plastic was what was separating me from the driver and I guess, from sharing in each others germs.
I can’t say pre-pandemic I really gave plastic much thought, other than I know we’re supposed to be using less of it to save the endangered species in our lakes and oceans. Isn’t it ironic that in order to save ourselves, we’re producing more plastic in the form of take out containers, grocery bags and cutlery than we likely ever have in the history of humankind.
Back to the cool light. I’ve been experimenting lately with some of Pat’s (@laroquephoto.com) presets that come with his 1 Eye Society subscription and I have to say I really find them a joy to use. I know they’re supposed to be just a starting point but you know that’s what separates the men from the boys (clearly, I’m still just a boy ;). So for the time being I’m just enjoying the ease of clicking a button and having 97% of my post processing done. The “starting point” stuff will come in time.
The second set of images are work I’m doing to emulate a certain Polaroid look as a preset. The process is fascinating to me. The preset completely transforms the image into something different from the starting point. Like the plastic, reality is being distorted, the feeling is now different, perhaps even a different time and place. And maybe in these ridiculous times that feeling of being somewhere else is about as far away as life is going to take us for the time being.
SHOT WITH FUJI X100F
