Back At It
I was reenergized and ready to flex my creative muscles again, and flex I did. I went back to SVA to finish my degree, and as the digital camera revolution was in full swing, I stuck to shooting film. I wasn’t just shooting on film for nostalgia’s sake, though; I was obsessed with film and with the random light leaks and distortions from my Holga.
A Holga is a cheap Chinese-made camera with a plastic lens that is now out of production. You used to be able to get one of these crappy little plastic toy cameras from the impulse display at your local camera store for 20 dollars.
They shoot on medium format film (120mm), but I decided to tinker with it. I wanted to shoot on 35mm film, so I made an image that included sprocket holes. For those of you who haven’t seen film in 20 years, 35mm film is the kind that came in those little metal cassettes.
That wasn’t enough for me, though. I had modified the camera, but could I modify the film? After all, film is nothing but silver salts on celluloid. So, I started to mess with the chemistry by adding household chemicals to each roll. What would happen if I soaked the film in lemon juice? What would hydrogen peroxide do to my film? What about electricity?
This project became an exploration in controlled chaos. It became my thesis at SVA and went viral in 2013. I called it Photogenic Alchemy and you can see the images here.