Seven Sumo Studies (Portraits), 1983

These were all taken in 1983 directly from a rather small Panasonic television screen with an SX-70 camera: I had torn the ligaments in my right ankle & couldn't get around so it began as something to simply alleviate the boredom of the invalid. To eliminate room reflections I would drape a piece of black fabric over the TV & myself creating an effect much like a photographer using an old 8 by 10 view camera which at the time I found extremely amusing. The colors are all the result of manually fiddling with the color, tint, brightness & contrast dials on my ancient television set since this was before the advent of photoshop or for that matter the personal computer. I often suspect that the brilliant colors were also, in part, due to the fact that the tube was about to die on me. I've never been able to get quite the same effects on any other set I've owned.