The Inspiration

"My inspiration is not limited to beautiful raw ingredients, perfect flavors, celebration and laughter. I am also inspired by the imagination and creativity of artists, poets and musicians everywhere. To parallel the transformation of this magical property to ESTATE, I was mesmerized by some of the old Italian films. These films capture and recreate a mood of reverie, mystery, intensity and often an avant-garde sense of place. In reviewing these films, I was looking for an instant, just a split second that could possibly tell a whole new thought provoking story, with just a little bit of imagination. Watching Chris combine his contemporary unique vision with traditional filmaking was an inspiration in itself."

Sondra Bernstein

The Artist

CHRISTOPHER BUTLER

The Process

"My objective was to create a controlled aging effect upon the film.

This process focused on the desired aging effect while still maintaining

the integrity of the image. Initially, I took a 35 mm photograph of the digital image. Then I took the color negative of the still image and I projected it onto a white background. Under the glow of the enlarged projected image, I then began to add certain gelled lights on top of the image. This resulted in an entirely new image that had a soft overexposed effect along with the added color and filtered lens flares. Once I had acquired the deisred effect, I took a digital photograph of the projected image. With the digital image, I brought it into the computer and cleaned up the image using contrast and computerized lighting effects."

Christopher Butler