Sekatekniikka

Dull random shots taken with a Konica Revio APS camera. Expired film home developed in a tank, without a spiral. (I’ve done this many times without any problems, except the usual drying stains.)

And all too soon it became a reality. Earlier this week we heard the news that Fujifilm is going to stop producing FP-100C instant film. This means that millions of fine, beautiful cameras will soon be useless. It also means that future artists, those that are now kids, will be unable to experience, and what’s more tragic, even understand, the key photographic medium of Mapplethorpe and Warhol, or Patti Smith (who illustrated her book M Train, published last year, with black and white peel-apart Polaroids). Peel-apart film, Edwin Land’s genius invention, is so complex and delicate in construction that you just can’t do it ‘at home’. This means that this kind of instant film will soon be much more ‘historical‘ means of making pictures than even daguerreotype or calotype are now. Peel-apart ‘Type 100′ pack film will not be ‘alternative’ photography in the near future; it will only be non-existent, extinct, a technological dinosaur. This is a big step towards a more monotonous, more tedious culture of photography. But of course this was just a matter of time. Every devotee of peel-apart instant film was well prepared for this week’s sad news... But somehow I even see FP-100C’s discontinuation as a dystopian symbol of the decline of our oil-based, optimistic technological civilization as a whole. We still have a lot to lose, but some losses are bigger than others.

https://youtu.be/BPrkZkSsFyU

PS. Kirjasen kannet ovat vanhaa ja hunnuttunutta tai vahingossa pilalle valottunutta hopeavedostuspaperia. Numeroiden 1–50 kannet ovat Ilfordin helmiäispintaista muovipaperia, joka toimii tässä käytössä hyvin, numeroiden 51–120 taas vanhaa kroatialaista Varycon-kuitupaperia, jonka pinta murtuu taitettaessa. Papereita ei ole kehitetty eikä kiinnitetty, joten kannet elävät valolle altistuessaan. Voit ilmivedostaa siihen fotogrammeja: tee sapluuna, vie kirjanen valoon, odota. (Katso kuvat. Mutta jos haluat, että kuvio pysyy, sinun täytyy huljutella kantta vähän aikaa kiinnitteessä.)

Nico – darkroom experiments. This is based on a 1980s promotional photograph of Nico (by P.L. Noble, it says). I bought it some years ago on eBay. Now I noticed that it had started to deteriorate, because badly fixed in its day. The first picture is the original, and the fading (turning to gold) process can be seen there. So I decided to make a contact negative of it on some old litho film. That was very successful. I even made positive out of that negative too. That’s when the fun started. I made different contact prints of the negative on BW and RA-4 colour paper. The third in the series was toned yellow using Kool-Aid Orange juice (which I believe some people in the US actually drink). A few minutes’ bath after fixing the BW photo did the trick... The last two look like someone’s been browsing through Photoshop filters quite brainlessly, and just chosen one that looks nice. But that’s not the case. It was made using both the negative and the positive sheet, but slightly out of sync.

My photobook Paita – The Shirt finally published. Standard & Deluxe editions. 260 copies are numbered, of which forty (the 'Deluxe Edition') contain a series of hand-made colour prints, all numbered correspondingly. The book can be ordered here: http://www.savukeidas.com/tuote/antti-nylen-paita-the-shirt/

Finished print series for the 'Deluxe Edition' of my soon-to-be-published photobook Paita – The Shirt. 120 prints in total. The sweet, pungent RA-4 chemical vapours linger on in my head!

Jarvis 2003–2015. Deeply missed. Here on Impossible film, summer 2013.

(Sorry for the sorry pics; I'm not a digital photographer.)

Instax Mini Monochromes. This little project is based on an old 35mm black and white negative. I made a positive and then a negative print from it on ortochromatic litho film, then exposed Instax Mini frames through the positive sheet in a darkroom with an enlarger, changing colour filtering values, then developed the pictures on an Instax camera. Instax, especially the Mini size, is a wonderful film, but the cameras are too restricting. One has to abuse it.

The cover for my Paita – The Shirt photo book. Design by Jorma Hinkka. The book is now finished, minus printing, and it's going to be published in February 2015. Have a nice Christmas everybody!

Thank you for your interest!

From the series "Zero Seasons – Depression in Color". Kodak movie film exposed @ ISO 100 with Yashica T3, push processed in Tetenal C41 chemicals. These are just poor scans. I will make RA4 prints also...

Autoportrait as the translator of Autobiography. Expired Ilford XP2 400 exposed @ ISO 800.

Foma 100, DIY 9x12 camera. Cats are an underrated subject matter. They are not easy to photograph, unless they sleep, and even then it's tricky. They do no tolerate any unnecessary fuss around them, such as taking a photograph with clumsy, ugly, intrusive equipment. This shot was a moderate success, even though the depth of field, sadly, does not include the whiskers at the front...

Kodak EXR 50D movie film once again, cross-processed in C-41. This is what my scanner thinks about the negatives.

A completely overexposed FP-3000B negative, abused in hot water. This could be tried, for effects, with slightly more informative pictures too. Interesting organic textures.