Mystery negatives…

So I found a mystery roll of 220 in my film bag a couple weeks ago after we went backpacking. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I had shot in color – black and white has been my go to for the last few months at least since I can develop it at home. So i dropped it by Filmbox and they ran it through in a couple days.

Lo’ and behold, the only color roll I ran through the Fuji 690 on the yard sale last August. Not sure how I lost track of it.

I think she is taking a picture of a purse she just bought? Context clues…

This was at the Mennonite community we stop at every year. They don’t like having their photos taken, but no one seemed to mind about the horse. 

I’m thinking of selling the camera, though. Not much of what I shoot warrants such a huge piece of film. 645 is probably more reasonable (and manageable for hiking/backpacking). A little less… conspicuous. A little less… spendy.

Mordancage for Tenebrae

So back in February, one of the elders at my church asked if I’d be interested in contributing to our Tenebrae service for holy week this year. “Sure, what are you looking for?” The darker and more abstract the better. A dark and abstract photo…

So after brainstorming with some friends, Leah came up with the idea of trying out the mordancage process, and I have to say it was a stroke of genius on her part. The way the process works, the darker the image, the more distressed it ends up. The long and short of it is this – you drop the print in an acid bath and the blacks start to dissolve, but since there’s less silver in the whites, they don’t dissolve. But the cool part is that the dissolving emulsion lifts from the paper and forms curtains, sheets, parachutes that adhere back the paper when it dries. Super chaotic stuff. Perfect for Tenebrae (Latin for shadows or darkness).

The idea was to try it out on a few different prints to see which worked the best, but it ended up turning into a tryptic. Which was just a shame, really.

After holding off judgment for a couple months, I feel pretty good about them. But my personality is way too detail oriented to easily accommodate the process into my repertoire. I’ll probably mess with it again in the future, but it was incredibly frustrating to work with in the moment. Expectations adjusted…

My friend Chris modeled for the photos.