Hands

The "Hands" project remains one of my most challenging and most satisfying ever.

The project included 15 different hand gestures that people use to describe situations or to communicate. The subject hands were greased up with Vaseline to allow some areas to reflect light and the model (my spouse) was asked to remain perfectly still for the individual 15-second studio exposures. I used a 4" x 5" large format camera to capture all of the images on film.

All of the images were wet processed onto 11" x 14" paper and then I selected 6 and enlarged them to 16" x 20". It painstakingly took me an entire Summer session at Ryerson U to print the 6 images (also wet processed) which today are proudly displayed in my dining room. They are excellent conversation pieces.

As a set, the 15 images represent an eerie collection of human behaviour in black & white. For me, the 6 enlargements are priceless.