OK, people of the MSA. It is time to look at all of the pictures and have a little discussion about all of the photographs. You all put in effort and tried to come up with unique and interesting photograph, in a topic that was not easy to navigate.
Here are some notes and observations about each photograph:
MSA GALLERY SUBMISSIONS:
March 5th - StoneNYC ‘Himalayan Rock Salt on butcher block’
A narrow depth of field representation of salt crystals. To me it represents a fairly literal representation of what cooking salt can be, but with a twist that it’s rare artisanal salt, showing us that StoneNYC has good taste and appreciates those finer nuances in life. When I see rare items like these I think about where the item comes from, who collected it, packaged it, etc. A nice photograph. Film scan.
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March 13th - NedL ‘Pinhole Salt’
A macro pinhole photograph of hypo salt crystals made on paper negative. A portrait of photographic application, what salts used in the traditional darkroom process look like up close, in an interesting way. It’s certainly a photograph that is fairly unique, which gives points in the creativity account. It seems that the image has not been inverted to positive in the scan. Paper negative scan.
(Inverted version shown in thread)
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March 13th - TheToadMen ‘Tasting Salt (MSA - March 2014)’
A close-up portrait of a cow licking its nose, with digital negative used to make a salt print. Because a digital negative was used we are outside the parameters of APUG, unfortunately, and the photograph, while interesting and inventive (first contributor to use salt print as medium), is disqualified.
This is a shame as it’s a nicely done print that would have gone quite high on my list. Salt print from digital negative.
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April 4th - Bertus ‘Salt (MSA salt)’
A photograph of road salt in a bucket. The crystals themselves are interesting and look as though they have been there a while, drawing moisture from the air. Yet another topic for the broad assignment of ‘salt’. Very nice printing. Silver gelatin print from enlarged negative.
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April 4th - Bertus ‘Salt (MSA salt)’
A portrait of a big pile of road salt. Beautiful texture, and the brightness from the window in the top left corner adds great contrast to the pitch black shadows of the wall. Well handled, slightly abstract. Silver gelatin print from enlarged negative.
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April 10th - NedL ‘Huichica Salt Pond’
A photograph of reeds in a pond, with a very tranquil feel. The lack of detail and fairly stark quality of the photograph makes for a beautiful minimalistic presentation, which forces me to study the shapes of the reeds, eyes wandering from left to right, around to the foreground and begin at the left again. I can’t help but think it would look very interesting rotated 90 degrees clockwise, making for a good head scratcher. From a technical standpoint it’s noteworthy that water from the pond was used to coat the paper. Pinhole paper negative, contact printed to hand coated salt paper to print.
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April 17th - barbara ann ‘Salt-1 MSA’
Another fairly literal representation of the topic at hand. Nicely constructed. Has almost a graffiti feel to it. 35mm negative, commercial print.
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April 17th - barbara ann ‘Salt-2 MSA’
A portrait of a whiskey tumbler full of salt. Nice detail and light in the photograph. 35mm negative, commercial print.
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April 17th - barbara ann ‘Salt-3 MSA’
Photograph of a bowl of salt crystals dissolving in water. Slight abstract quality that raises a few questions of what is going on. I love the light from the background, and along the top edge of the bowl. 35mm negative, commercial print.
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April 17th - barbara ann ‘Salt-4 MSA’
Portrait of Morton Ice Cream salt crystals. Beautiful glowing light from the salt crystals, appearing as though they are half way dissolved in liquid. 35mm negative, commercial print.
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April 26th - Heinz ‘MSA Salt, Polaroid T-54 in 545i Holder’
Still life of a tomato sliced in half, salt crystals and what looks like small ice cubes. Heavy emphasis on the technical process using expired Polaroid instant film and a discussion surrounding the ‘New 55’ film. Nice soft and diffuse lighting in the still life. Polaroid T-54 direct positive film.
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April 27th - Heinz ‘MSA ‘Salt’ image only version’
Same as above but with just the image area of the Polaroid picture scanned.
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April 30th - Heinz ‘Nano-Salt’
A photograph of a 7,500,000 scale model of chlorine atoms, which are part of the make-up of salts. An interesting concept which examines the scale of the constituent parts of some of the chemicals that make up our photo chemistry are put together. Polaroid T-54 direct positive film.
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THREAD SUBMITTALS
March 3rd - jeffreyg ‘Untitled’
Still life of salt shakers. Dark featureless blacks surround salt shakers in shining chrome. They look like they are made of silver, possibly vintage. Interesting collection. Process unknown.
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March 23rd - alex gard ‘Antarctic sea-ice’
Landscape photograph of Antarctic sea ice, which consists to some degree of frozen salt water. Beautiful depth in an arid and barren landscape. The global interest of climate change is at center here, something that is important to educate the world about. It’s a beautiful landscape, full of rich texture and wonderful contrast. 4x5 negative, remaining process unknown.
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April 4th - Bertus - ‘Salt storage for Road sliperiness’
Three more photographs of road salt from Bertus, in addition to those in the MSA gallery. A closer look at the salt mountain (it’s really difficult to tell the scale of the subject, which is a wonderful quality), a close-up of bags of salt that must have gotten wet, where salt brine leaked out and formed small stalagmites, and finally plastic wrapped salt bags. Silver gelatin prints.