Experimenting with RGBYMC (red, green, blue, yellow, magenta, cyan) in the color darkroom is an amazing opportunity everyone should experience. Blue is one of the primary colors and one of my favorites as well. Finding a precise shade of blue was a goal I set for myself in the color darkroom. The fact that this process was difficult pushed me to achieve it even more. At that moment, I decided to use a portrait photo of a friend and fellow classmate. The result was an 8x10 portrait photo with a Carolina shade of blue which I was greatly proud of.
From this photo, I began a series consisting of 20 shades of blue portraits of 20-year-old African American male Milan Russell. My thought process behind this series was to use a muse that I could relate to, for Milan is a person of color interested in photography as well am I. Each Portrait has a different shade of blue which was uniquely decided within the color dark room. Some images were taken with a 4x5 view camera but most with a 645-format camera. Using 120 mm black and white film also contributes to this process. Each image has a profound amount of detail to emphasize the portrait itself. Shooting in different environments with natural lighting, the images are bold because the foreground is very detailed and in focus with the help of the background being abstract and out of focus, ultimately pushing the foreground forward. Some shades of blue are uniquely made for they can consist of 2 or more different filtrations.
This series references artists such as Anna Atkins, Carrie Mae Weems, as well as William Gass. From reading On Being Blue by Gass, I began to understand blue can be as transparent as glass but also dark enough to where it is not as dull. In this series, the difference in shades greatly shows that blue can vary in tone, shade, and hue, stemming from the typical true blue and cyan we all know to be dynamic.
