BRIEF DESCRIPTION:
David McClendon created these portraits with a hand-built, room-sized camera (a camera obscura). The subject sits outside the camera, and he take the exposure while standing inside. The camera uses 14×17 inch medical x-ray film, which provides him with a negative dense with detail and an altered gray scale palette, allowing him to create these gritty, hyper-real looking images. David built the camera with the specific intent of making unique looking photographs.
David’s printmaking started as traditional contact printing onto 16×20 silver gelatin paper, but he has recently begun drum scanning negatives and printing them as archival pigment prints at 36×44. Large images have a lot of impact.
ARTISTS STATEMENT:
There is an admittedly voyeuristic quality to his x-ray portraits. David McClendon thoroughly enjoy watching his subjects react to viewing their portrait for the first time. He even printed the negatives backwards to give the subject the impression of looking into a mirror and seeing their reflected image shining back at them in the customary orientation. As the viewer, you can examine these faces closely without embarrassment, counting the number of pores on a chin, freckles on a forehead, or blood vessels in an eye, etc. We are socially programmed to pay special attention to nuances of the human face for survival, but seldom can we examine faces in so much detail. Observe all.