In Buddhism the skull is a reminder that our precious human life is short and without the spiritual practice of pure intention and meritorious action we may continue to experience suffering in future lives. These Buddha's Angel's and Higher Spiritual Beings do not exist as physical entities but rather as visionary spiritual perceptions manifesting in light.
The framed four by five inch plate, mounted in a cardboard "Matt" window sandwiched between two plates of glass in the picture frame, is sprayed with clear varnish on the rear emulsion side for protection and to seal it as one would usually do with paint. I sprayed it in such a manner so as to cause "Orange Peeling" on the surface so that it became a little opaque like bathroom glass in order to defocus the background, as one would do with depth of field in a photograph.
The fact that this Hologram is in a frame usually used for hanging on the wall is something of a paradox because hanging it on a wall defeats the purpose of it's being clear for transparency. I have never actually displayed a hologram on the wall that way myself, always viewing my holograms in hand held mode and tilting them about to view them.
Kali's Amulet Hologram was the first image I made with the intention to present for sale as a commercial art piece.
My first port of call at that time was of course the Light Fantastic Gallery at Covent Garden where it became known as the Skull Hologram.
I had read an article by Nick Phillips suggesting a brightness advantage result from equally diverging object and reference beams. I shot the master hologram for this image with both reference and object beams diverging from about one to two meters from the master plate. An 8x10" Agfa-Gevaert 8E75 plate developed using the Nick Phillips Neofin Blau formulary. All other H2 plates were developed in pyrochrome.
I liked the distortion caused in the reflection hologram H2 copies, which in effect made the Skull appear to zoom out towards you connected to horizontal parallax. It was a nod towards image animation where I intended to eventually work. It acknowledged that "jump out and frighten" fun fair scariness, cheap trick thing, on the one hand. Where as the light in the eye's suggestion of something alive looking back at you from the archetypal symbol of death, created by the two fat fiber optic threads I sewed thru the eye sockets and illuminated from behind with a beam reflected from just a small piece of glass, I felt stirred a more philosophical feeling concerning skull imagery and brought the whole thing to life.
I was pleased with the overall effect and signed the first copies with a spectral signature “Dusty Studio Holograms”, scratched into glass, masked and mounted near the copy plate on the reference beam side to create rainbow writing.
JB
Jonathan Brodel photographed by Adrian Lines
