Analog Love Letter: Architectural Sails

Here's another one of my Lomography/Xpro phase photographs during the mid to late 2000s. Xpro, or cross processing, is developing your film in the wrong chemicals in order to yield odd color shifts you wouldn't get if you processed your roll of film in its normal chemicals. For me, xpro'ing film allows the viewer to see the world with a different set of eyes. Some film that's xpro'd will shift into the red as if you've got a pair of infrared eyes, and some will shift in the blue's and greens.

This particular film shifted towards the green and yellow with a bit of blue. The Walt Disney Concert Hall is an amazing piece of architecture. When it was first built, light that fell on the reflective surface was so bright that people who lived in the adjacent apartments and condominiums complained and a fix was made to the building to dampen the effect. 

Frank Gehry, its architect, is one of my favorites. He also designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

"Walt Disney Concert Hall curves" / 35mm cross processed Kodak E100VS / February 2010

Analog Love Letter: Much Too Bright

This is a photo from my earlier days of film photography. I was using a standard Canon AE-1 Program SLR, and heavy in the Flickr scene when it was a big thing, uploading all my scanned film photos and joining the various analog groups on there. I discovered the very small niche scene of lomography and xpro'ing film which highly interested me. It was something new and exciting and I wanted to know more about it so the more research I did on the subject and scene, the more I wanted to go out and buy a toy camera and try out cross processing my film.

The day I purchased my first toy camera, a Holga CFN, I bought some film and promptly began shooting. There was a small house party of sorts and I went through my first few rolls of film that night when I took this photo of my friend Flor.

The CFN has a special flash built in which has colored gel filters on it so you're able to change the color of the flash at your choosing. That ability, along with the various color shifts that come with cross processing film, the resulting image possibilities are nearly endless.

For some people, the niche look of lomography and cross processing film can get boring and tiresome but to this day, I'm still shooting on various toy cameras and cross processing film.

"Too bright of a flash" / 6x4.5 medium format Kodak Ektachrome 64T / February 2007

Analog Love Letter: Los Angeles Silhouetted

When 500 Days of Summer came out, it become an instant movie favorite of mine. It was a bit of a love letter to a couple of things I hold near and dear which is Los Angeles, The Smiths and well, falling in love.

There is a scene in the movie in which the two protagonists spend a brief moment together on a park bench on Bunker Hill next to the Grand Central Market and Angel's Flight (which is now closed sadly). The scene made the park so famous that for a brief time, there was an actual bench dedicated to the movie and I believe it was called the "500 Days of Summer Bench." Correct me if I'm wrong.

I went to the location with the mission to take a photo of GCM while sitting on the bench but I took this photo of the buildings being silhouetted because the bench was cordoned off. I later learned that the park itself was being closed down and the bench is now no longer there.

"There is a light that never goes out" / 35mm Kodak E100VS / February 2010

Analog Love Letter: Theatrics

I like to cover protests. It allows me to photograph something that's journalistic and a bit of street photography. Often times I find myself somewhat in line politically with the protests I do decide on attending and documenting but I do a great job keeping out whatever political affiliation and ideals to better document the story.

There are a good mix of different people who attend these protests. You have the level headed ones, the ones who attend to protest the issue at hand specifically. This time around it was the protest of the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. Then you have the wild cards as I like to call them. People who come to protest other issues outside of the original protest at hand and those people tend to be...unpredictable.

I took this photo of the more theatrical kind of protester. Not entirely sure why he's wearing a gas mask as it was more for show because it didn't look like it would actually help in the event tear gas was used. While everyone was doing the "hands up don't shoot" mantra that was popular during Michael Brown protests, he decided to lay down. I felt a great deal of anger from this person. He was very confrontational with the LAPD officers that were escorting the group of protesters.

"Lone protester on the ground" / 35mm AGFA Precisa CT 100 Cross Processed / November 2014

Analog Love Letter: Chemistry

Each type of film involves a certain set of chemistry to "properly" develop negatives (or positives if you're working with slide film). I use properly in quotations because you can develop one type of film using the chemicals for another type and get some interesting and weird results. You can even develop black and white film using color film chemicals. The process is called cross processing or xpro.

I shot this photograph at the Venice Beach Skate Park using Fuji Tungsten slide film but I developed using color negative chemicals which is why you have this huge, magenta color shift and gives this photograph an otherworldly look to it. The look is not for everyone but there's a big circle of film photographers dedicated to cross processing their film to attain these looks and all films react differently so you never really know what you'll be getting. It allows you to see the world with a different set of eyes.

"Es" - 6x6 medium format Fuji T64 cross processed / July 2011