Weblog Entry - 03/16/2004: "photo therapy"

The past couple of days have been kind of rough. Last week the dog started getting picky about eating. Then she stopped eating almost entirely, except for a few scraps of roast beef I was able to coax her to eat from my hand. Her gait had been getting unsteady over the past year from some spinal arthritis problems. Toward the end of the week, even standing was an uncertain proposition. We had harbored hopes of her living long enough for us to get out of the city, long enough to bounce in a grassy yard, dig holes in the flower garden, and find interesting smells to roll in... all those good doggie things. It just wasn't meant to be.

I could have blown off photo class Saturday and sat around a too quiet and empty house. I thought it better to keep busy, as busy as possible, and filled the whole day with some photo therapy. After the formal part of class, some of my classmates hung out while I did a quick "show and tell" on the gum bichromate process. In exchange for the short tutorial and guidance through her first few gum prints, one of my classmates was kind enough to agree to model for some IR light painting to help me gather enough material for my final project.

It wasn't quite dark enough for light paint play, so we killed an hour or so with sushi and beer and photo babble. With Spring break in progress, the art center was deserted in the evening, so access to the studio wasn't an issue. Things moved along quickly, or at least quickly for a light paint session, with the hours passing almost unnoticed. I knew we had some fine shots looking at the negatives and was even happier with the results after a few hours in the darkroom last night. I only managed a few prints since I needed to get moving on making lith film interpositives. These shots and more should be coming as alt-process work in a few weeks.

The photos are beautiful, but more important - I feel your pain over your pooch. Ten years ago, we lost our great dane to the same thing, and I've never really got over that... I still tear up every time I see a dane. *sigh* I understand that empty place in your heart, my friend.