My Onion image probably generates more questions and comments than any other image I've ever made. Here's its story.
I originally bought this onion to cook with. As fate would have it, I went out of town unexpectedly before I had a chance to use it. When I returned home, the onion had started to sprout in an interesting way, so I decided to let it "do its thing." A week or two passed, and the onion continued to sprout.
One night as I was getting ready for bed, I saw the onion sitting on my kitchen counter. It said "now," so I went and got my 4x5 camera out. I had some mirrored mylar left from my studio days in San Francisco and decided that would make a fun background. As I started fiddling with my "model," some of the skin fell off, but it gave my scene a lovely sense of luminosity, so I decided to keep it in the image.
The only light was the ceiling fixture in my kitchen. By the time I calculated the basic exposure and all the other necessary adjustments, I wound up with a 40-minute exposure. I opened the shutter, tip-toed out of the house and went for a 40-minute walk. I came back at the after the 40 minutes were up, closed the shutter and called it a night.
Because everyone asks...the shape to the left of the actual onion is not its reflection on the mylar, but rather the profile of my kitchen counter and cabinet. It's just a coincidence that it mimics the shape of the onion so closely. And if you look carefully, you can see the reflection of my kitchen light on the onion's skin.
General Edition and Sizing Information:
Limited Edition Prints signed and numbered in an edition of 100. Each print is made personally by me, printed either on Ilford Multigrade Classic fiber paper and selenium toned, or on Canson Platine paper using a Canon Pro-1000 printer and my personal printing profiles. Mounted and over-matted on 4-ply or 8-ply museum board using the most current industry standards for archival permanence. Note: This is one of three images offered in an edition of 150.
Open Edition Archival Pigment Print made personally by me on Canson Rag Photographique paper using a Canon Pro-1000 printer and my personal printing profiles. Mounted and over-matted on 4-ply museum board using the most current industry standards for archival permanence. Digitally signed.
Sizing:
Open Edition Pigment Print – Image size approximately 8x10, over-matted to 14x17 with 4-ply museum board
11x14 Limited Edition Print – Image size approximately 9x11.5, over-matted to 16x20 with 4-ply museum board