Where's My Monkey??

Have you ever seen a photograph of the Taj Mahal? You see how clean, fresh, and empty it looks? A giant, pristine example of architecture and one of the wonder's of the world. Also one of the largest tourist attractions in the world. Ever wonder how they got everyone to leave so that they could take that beautiful, empty picture?

Wanna know?

A mathmatecally competent photographer got up early in the morning, set up his camera, threw on a neutral density filter and opened the camera up for, oh I don't know, probably about eight hours; maybe even all day. You see, they didn't find a way to rid the Taj Mahal of visitors, they simply took such a long exposure that all of the insignificant little swarming people disappeared. In order to register on film, especially a slow film with a massive neutral density filter, you would have to stand still for hours on end, which is nearly impossible for a human.

If you have ever seen old photographs from the early 1900's of women and men that are sitting down looking angry at the world, there are several reasons. One, it is extremely difficult to smile for the length of an exposure at the time, which could be upwards of a minute. Second, the natural mechanics of the body make it difficult to stand still and straight for that ammount of time. And lastly, those chairs that they are sitting in often had neck supports that they were clamped into the keep their heads from moving. Can't you just see Giselle in a neck clamp?

Yet I digress. The point of the first part of this story was to emphasize that a consistent, stable exposure with moving subjects would ultimately render those subjects invisible. It is really rather humbling when you think of it in terms of the greater scale of time and our own insignificance...but that is a philosophical discussion for another time.

The most recent creative assignment that we had was "Time." I decided to do a multiple exposure; that is to say, a single background with a steady camera and moving subjects. The concept? Darwin's Evolution of Man. The method? Dress SPF up as a monkey, take a shot; then as a caveman, take two shots; then just as him for the final shot (in jeans. We opted against the standard "naked" evolution.) The more complicated concept was to have SPF become more substantial as the "evolution" progressed. That is to say, the first two images were captured at 1/16 of a second; the third at 1/8 of a second, and the last at 1/4 of a second. The conceptual result would have been a very ghosted monkey and hunched caveman, a slightly more substantial erect caveman, and a much more substantial modern day man. In the actual image the Monkey completely disappeared. There is no evidence of the whites of his eyes or the teeth that he bared. No rubbery hands and feet. No dragging knuckles. Nothing. It was as if a fundamentalist had tampered with my image to give me man becoming man. From Adam to Adam. I am quite creeped out by it.

Also ticked off that I spent fifty bucks to rent the monkey suit.