Dodging and Burning

I took this one in Vienna, on a cold and rainy May afternoon. The entire front of the building was covered with this poster announcing the opening of "Palmers" store. The size of the poster itself, compared to the street lamp, was impressive.

At first sight, I wanted to use the man selling postcards as the story, since the poster is just a poster. But it was a cold day, the man was all bundled up in his coat, and the contrast with the woman in a bikini seemed promising. I had my Ukrainian Salyut C medium format camera with me, with a 90mm lens. But the man was just cold and had turned his back to the poster.

I waited a few minutes in the increasing rain, hoping for something to change. And when the man turned around deciding to cover his postcards with a plastic sheet as the rain was getting stronger, I took a second shot.

When I printed the picture, there was nothing special about it. The writing on the poster was distracting and made it obvious that it was a poster. Yet, the street lamp, its relative size and the man now turned toward the poster were intriguing me. So I decided to print the second picture again, this time with simple dodging and burning during the printing. No Photoshop in my shop! Just old-fashion over and under exposure of select areas by covering the photographic paper with my thumb's shade under the enlarger's light.

The result is below. Now, it looks like she is a chimeric model in this man's painting studio! I left the "P" of "Palmers" semi-apparent to keep the authenticity of the poster....

January 4, 2104
©Vahé Kazandjian, 2014