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On Photography, Art, And The Creative Life
Welcome to the place affectionately known as my "writings on the walls", where you will find images, thoughts, and discussions on Photography, Art, and The Creative Life... or so I'm told.
How I Did It :: Used Film Post 1
This is the first in a series of 11 blogposts in the “Used Film” series describing the thought processes, creative decisions, and analog process of creating these images using film 🎞, both Polaroid and sheet film. So much of these processes, figuring out how to create the looks and effects, felt very much like being Victor Frankenstein and piecing...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Post 2
This image of a ram’s skull was fairly simple to photograph, it was in the “processing” that the qualities really brought about its magical potential. First, the rigging: I draped a large black velvet cloth backdrop that I cut an X slit in the middle of. Next I rigged a stand behind the velvet with a pole sticking through the X and mounted the skul...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Post 3
If you are following this Used Film series in order, you’ll recognize the technique I used to get this second ram’s skull image. This particular image above is actually only technically the third step in the process and not the final image (it contains the negative image of the skull, plus the negative image of the paper background itself, both “sa...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 4
This image titled, “Feather, Stone, and Light” was inspired by the title track from the collaborative album of the same name by the Native American flautist R. Carlos Nakai. It is the literal interpretation of that instrumental piece, which I listened to while making this image. Shooting straight down on a tripod mounted 4x5 large format camera is...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 5
Ah, now this image I feel was truly inspired! What is it? Technically it was created as a background only for a watch ad where the theme was “Cubist” and meant to play up the qualities of the watch and it’s calendar features. After days of not having a clue as to how to illustrate a “Cubism” look with a 4x5 camera and analog film (remember this was...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 6
This image was originally created for an editorial cover illustrating the human senses. This one turns up the notch on creating multi-layered analog film images. Long before I was introduced to Photoshop I was creating various multiple exposure images in-camera using Polaroids and color positive films. I learned how to combine multiple images on a...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 7
Orchids are beautiful subjects to photograph whether in color or Black & White. For this one I chose to photograph it using Type-55 Polaroid. I chose a special Japanese art paper called Mulberry as the background for the infused seedlings and fibers in this thick paper. It seemed to convey that quality of life and fertility. Again I chose to light...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 8
This image, unique from the others in this series, comes from a 35mm Black & White infrared film negative re-photographed onto a Type-55 Polaroid neg. Remember a negative of a negative creates a positive image. In order to create a 4x5 Polaroid image from a 35mm original, you need a special piece of gear. Years ago I was asked to teach a six-week c...
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How I did It :: Used Film Part 9
So, you have to make a course to teach students about all the creative fine art possibilities of various Polaroid films. Before it went under, Polaroid had some very cool films nobody else could match. One of those films was the popular Time-Zero film for the SX-70 camera. One photographer I knew of from the ‘80s who pretty much owned this Time-Zer...
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How I Did It :: Used Film Part 10
So now we get to the place with Polaroid film where I spent the most time to master, the famous Polaroid Transfer technique. This particular technique involves using the Type-59 Polaroid 4x5 film and “transferring” the image from the Polaroid substrate to a watercolor paper substrate.
A wee bit history: Before Polaroid Transfers became widely popu...
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