Shooting film sets its own limitations on the photographer. You don’t work with a “raw” file… a pristine, neutral “capture.” A digital file ready and waiting for its pixels to pushed and pulled in countless directions. Film has boundaries inherent in its manufacture. Light sensitivity in particular, but also more simple restrictions, such as “black and white” or “color.” I recently picked up a couple of rolls from the great folks at Lomography. All were color film, and the one that I was most looking forward to playing with was their Lomochrome Purple offering. Color shifting is inherent in this particular film, with greens shifting to purple, and reds and blues being accentuated in an unpredictable manner. I decided to expose the film on my recent sojourn to the deserts of Arizona. I figured the flora and fauna of springtime would be an excellent opportunity to test the boundaries of this film.

Upon development (at my local film lab) I scanned the resulting negatives. I must be honest, I wasn’t initially pleased with the results. Maybe I just don’t like the color purple (sorry, Prince) but I was underwhelmed by the images, save for a few photos that had more going on from a compositional standpoint. Working in color is always a stretch for me, but this particular exercise was beyond what I would consider a success. I scanned the film, posted a few of my favorites online, and put my negative binder back on the shelf.

…and then this week I took another look at the negatives. This time, I decided that a drastic revisit was in order. In a move now familiar to a few friends (and the handful of readers to this blog) I released my toolkit of scissors, tape, bleach, sandpaper and heat gun onto the unsuspecting strips of film. My dulled Xacto blade was surely striking a dagger into the ghost of Ansel Adams. I’ve been obsessed with Julian Schnabel lately, and the time in my studio, with the scent of burning plastic mixing with the warming New Mexico spring air, was driving me to channel his heroic attitude towards image making to the extreme. I approached the film with reckless abandon, not giving a f*ck about the results. The process of destruction being the act of creation was all that mattered.

As for the results, I am much happier now. Bleach and heat transformed the Lomo-color-shift into another realm. Is it good? Debatable. Is it art? Probably. Is it satisfying? Definitely.