Over the past few years, I have moved further away from straight photography in my creative practice. Any follower of this blog will have known that I have taken various drastic departures in pursuit of image making. At the same time, I’ve struggled with the fact that a “photograph” by is intrinsically representational.
Regardless of whatever manipulation one does: with lens or camera choices, post exposure manipulation (both analog and digital) there are still the fingerprints of some direct representation of the world within the image. This continues to be a quandary for me to deal with creatively. I have been revolting against the stream of similarity of images on social media: the impermanence and banality of even the most technically proficient photographs. Interesting subject matter or interesting concepts represented in a straight photographic manner for one reason or another has lost its appeal to me.
And yet. As I wrestle with this paradox I am looking for a detente of sorts. One small step I have recently taken is to carry around a small point shoot some camera with me. Through my daily obligations and travels I’ve been snapping photos of anything that happens to catch my eye at a certain point. I try not overthink the relevance of the subject matter, nor the technical approach. At the same time I am creating straight still photographs of the world around me.
This week I developed two rolls of the film I shot and it is still curious to me that even the most throwaway images seem to possess some kind of extra power when locked forever in silver halide on a roll of film. What might become of these images? Nothing, most likely. However, spending an evening developing, then scanning and studying his images has served some form of emancipation from my internal struggles with the work I create. There is still something quite alluring about seeing 36 images lined up on a sheet of paper. This current practice of mine, resulting in a contact sheet to meditate upon, is well worth the time invested.
2022: 37 Black Hole Sun
I often think about the status of the art of photography. Is it diminishing in value? Is it more ubiquitous, hence less important? Is it a means of expression that is less relevant than it once was? Has it been tarnished by its sheer omnipresence? Many of us who use this medium as a mode of expression probably wrestle with these questions. Yet, we continue to toil away at our craft, ignoring the change in the weather (metaphorically speaking.)
Daido Moriyama, a photographer I greatly admire, once released a body of work titled “Farewell Photography.” One could interpret the title as his own personal goodbye to the medium, and a look at the images from this series would certainly validate that opinion. Grainy, overly contrasty, scratched, water damaged and generally abused, the photographs felt like an extreme that could not be returned from. We know from history that Moriyama did indeed return from this precipice in his personal work, still photographing to this day. However, if we look at the title as a broader statement, I think its relevant to consider the idea of saying farewell to photography as something that still resonates today.
The image above is a film leader from a roll of 110 film I shot earlier this year. A simple, throwaway strip of film stock. But when I scanned it, I saw other things emerge. A sky, devoid of the brightness of the sun. Ab scorched landscape. The universe in a smattering of dust. An existential landscape. The end of straight, photographic representation? Is this even a photograph? It is a piece of film, exposed in a camera, and contextualized by my eye, my brain. Is it nothing or is it everything? Perhaps both? Is it a wrench thrown into the mechanisms of the forever churning, social media fueled, torrent of images? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.
2022: 6 Follow Up
Last week on my blog post, I asked if anyone could figure out how I made the photo I shared. What camera, what film what method did I use to create the “stitched” image above. A few intrepid readers got close (Mr. Atkins, in particular.) So, in the interest in full disclosure…I used my iPhone with a swanky app that simulates a bevy of old film cameras. This sharing was an exercise for myself: to see how the method, the process of making a photo impacts how it is perceived by a viewer. I also wanted to challenge my own biases about film vs digital vs iPhone photography. I am working hard this year to NOT GIVE A FUCK about the semantics and the dogma of image making. Do I like the picture? Do others like it? Does it matter? Does it matter how it was made? Do the answers to these questions mean anything to anyone? Probably not. I work hard to create images that do”something.” But that something doesn’t have to be earth shaking, transformative or revolutionary. They could be mundane. They could be entertaining to me and only me. They could be failures…digital ephemera that will float way within a few minutes of being shared. Dust in the wind, so to speak. This transience can be depressing, or it can be liberating. I choose the latter.
2021: 49 Fear and Loathing on Ebay
The life of a film photographer is sometimes an emotional minefield. The thrill of the “shoot and wait to see” process is often offset by soul crushing disappointment. Cameras are mis-loaded, film is exposed improperly, chemicals are exhausted… dust and scratches and fog, oh my. Add to the rollercoaster ride of emotions the pursuit of a working film camera. Sifting through Craigslist, thrift stores, yard sales and Ebay is a common pastime for film geeks. I experienced a bit of the bad end of the pursuit recently, and I’m still kinda pissed about it.
Why did I need to buy a 110 film camera? The bane of my existence in 7th grade, a shitty format that now seems so quaint and enticing. Fuck you, nostalgia. Lomography are like camera and film drug dealers to me. They are the only place to buy new 110 film cartridges. I bought a few rolls recently, not even owning a camera to shoot them with. So I jump on to Ebay, and hunt down a sporty, sexy old Minolta SLR zoom 110 camera. Yeah… a Rolls Royce of the tiny format. The camera looked good, was sold “as-is” but at a decent price. I rolled the dice. Of course, the anticipation of tracking a package from UPS is part of the thrill of buying something online. A 50 year old camera inching closer to my grubby hands. Of course, it arrived days after it was scheduled to be delivered. Of course, I opened the package immediately and popped batteries in and pressed the shutter. A weak, painfully slow reaction happened inside the camera…eventually I heard a faint click. No warning lights, no view to be seen through the viewfinder. Then…nothing. Nothing. In short, a lemon. A paperweight.
I decided since it wasn’t working anyway, I’d try to take it apart and fix it. Small, Phillips head screws held the body together. Simple to open up and poke around. Except that I am not at all mechanically inclined. My ten thumbs quickly dismantled the camera with no fucking way for me to even think of fixing it; never mind trying to put it all back together. In a fit of frustration, I threw the camera on the ground, where it burst into multiple pieces. I swept up the debris and threw it all in the dumpster. Case closed.
This is not the first time I threw money out the window on a non-functioning camera. My success rate is slightly over 50%, if I’m being honest. This one stung more than others though. Why? Was it that I bought into the hype over a format that was inferior when it first came out, swapping image quality for ease of loading and shooting? I scoffed when I heard Lomo was coming out with 110 film. And yet…and yet. So what do you do when you get burned by defeat? Do you walk home with your tail between your legs? Do you go home and cuddle with your Canon 6D, 23 megapixel lover who won’t break your heart? Or do you double down and fight against all odds to snatch victory from the jaws of 50 year old, dormant technology?
My new Minolta 110 slr zoom camera arrives in about a week.
2021: 41 You Never Know What You're Gonna Get
Yes, I’ve gone on and on and on about my love of film. I’ve also gone on and on and on about my love of plastic cameras, and pinhole photography, and on and on and on. Cue the anticipation music, please. Or maybe Tom Petty is more appropriate? I shot a ridiculous amount of film on my trip to Arizona, but then, of course, all that film needed to be developed. And scanned. So the whole process takes time. A lot of time. And that’s a good thing.
The time between shooting and then seeing the results is when the magic happens. You have no idea what you captured. or if you captured anything. Or if you advanced your film correctly, or if overlapping images is what you were hoping for. Or if your guessing of extremely long exposure times were accurate. Or if the shadow of your tripod sits squarely inside the frame. Or if your film is fogged. Or unevenly developed. Or scratched. Water spots, dust, those little half moons from a botched loading on the reel. Such a minefield. Such is the life of a film photographer. Masochism? Probably. And yet.
And yet, that moment when all the film is developed and scanned. You revisit the journey to make those pictures all over again. You celebrate the triumphs, you lament the “almosts” or “duds.” You see things you didn’t see before. You embrace serendipity. You learn form the experience. You keep going. You keep shooting. Masochism? Probably..
It’s time to shoot some film.
2021: 38 Heading South and West
Hard to believe that it was five months ago that I took my springtime road trip to the desert of Arizona. I am about to embark on another journey to spend some quality time with my cameras among the saguaro outside of Tucson. Guessing it will still be warm during the day, but hoping for a change in the light and the flora and fauna since my April visit. Plenty of film to expose, plenty of cameras to play with, and a new whip to carry it all in style and comfort. Very excited to move forward on the next phase of this ongoing project. As long as the spiders and snakes and javelinas behave, I should be in good shape.
2021: 30 Lomography Film Swap; Part Three
Wow, I shot a roll of color, after it was exposed by Lomo-friend Shaiana in Hong Kong. Really wild, cross-global results.
2021: 28 Lomography Film Swap
I like to tell myself that I’d never join a cult, although the matching outfits does have some appeal. The closest I’ve come to this kind groupthink is in improv, and of course, in my passion for film photography. We film heads are niche dwellers, for sure, and there is a particular sect that I’ve grown extra fond of, the good folks who populate the world of Lomography. I’ve been posting my film-based work on my “LomoHome” for quite some time now, and I genuinely appreciate the audience there. In fact, it’s much more than an audience, it really feels like a community.
A few months ago I answered a call for Lomographers interested in taking part in a film swap. The idea is that one person shoots a roll of film, then sends it on to another person to run the same roll through their camera. After processing, magical, serendipitous double exposures are revealed. Of course, the chances of crystal clear, sensical images are next to nil. Instead, the overlapping images create their own unique look. And when you compound this randomness with the fact that the images are from two very different locations…well, that’s when wonders appear.
I was sent a roll of black and white film with a fellow Lomographer from Germany. Their location was a nice foil for the urban desert shots of my southwest US environs. I am pleasantly surprised by the number of “winners” we achieved on this shared roll. But even more satisfying was the opportunity to collaborate with a another like-minded film shooter, especially since our shared roll is part of a larger group of over fifty film shooters.
Enjoy the gallery below and keep an eye out for more to come.
2021: 21 A Complete Meltdown
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.
sic transit gloria imago
2021: 16 Desert Life
Short and sweet… off the grid for a long delayed trip to Arizona. Photographing the “desert sentinels” also know as Saguaro cactus. Pinholes, and Lomos, and busted lenses, oh my! See you next week.