distressed

How to Age Film for a Distressed Look, or: How NOT to Store Your Film

A few years ago, I saw an article on water-damaged film that claimed the damage was due to bacteria and fungus eating the film. Having a bit of experience with fungus and bacteria from various scientific projects over the years, I thought I would explore this topic. Could I speed up the process? I also wanted to know which film aged the fastest, and was bacteria or fungus really responsible for the damage?

Photographer Breathes New Life Into His Old Negatives by Nearly Destroying Them

Purposely distressing and destroying negatives was never a part of photographer Rohn Meijer's plans, but when he discovered a box of old negatives in his basement that had been exposed to 15 years worth of moisture damage, an idea took shape.

The photos he found that day had a pleasing quality about them, and so Meijer, a fashion photographer by trade, decided he would start taking his old fashion shoot negatives and nearly destroying them into works of art.

Photos Created by Coating Negatives with Gasoline and Setting Them On Fire

Lisle, Illinois-based photographer Peter Hoffman's "Fox River Derivatives" project is a series of abstract photos that question mankind's relationship with natural resources. The photographs have a strange purple bubbles and colorations across the surface that are the result of an interesting technique: these images are what you get when you burn your negatives.

Photographers Find Success Selling Rolls of Handmade “Distressed” Film

Film photography has been taking a lot of hits in the business world, but while major manufacturers continue to discontinue film production, one small company is doing the exact opposite. Revolog -- a small online shop founded by photography school graduates Hanna Pribitzer and Michael Krebs in 2010 -- has been finding success by selling handmade specialty film.

And while you may think that specialty film wouldn't be a very lucrative business to enter right about now, get this: yesterday the duo announced the sale of their 10,000th roll of film.

Distorted Photos Created by Repeatedly Rephotographing Prints

For his project titled Back Yard, Japanese photographer Daisuke Yokota applied the musical ideas of echo, delay, and reverb to photography by shooting, developing, printing, and re-photographing the same image over and over. In an interview with American Photo, he states,

[...] first I used a compact digital camera, and printed the image out. Then I photographed that image with a 6x7 film camera, using color film, even though the image is later black and white. I developed it at home, in a way so that imperfections or noise will appear—I make the water extra warm, or don’t agitate the film. Even before that, I let some light hit the film; I’m developing in my bathroom, so it’s not even a real darkroom, which helps, but I’ll hold a lighter up to the film, or whatever is around. I’m always experimenting—the goal is to not do it the same way twice. So then, to produce more and more variations in the final image, I re-photographed the image about ten times.

Basically, Yokota is introducing distortion through what's known as generation loss.

Ruined Polaroid Pictures as Abstract Art

While many photographers aim for technical perfection, photographer William Miller goes the opposite route. After "rescuing" an old and barely functional Polaroid SX-70 instant camera from a yard sale, he began taking advantage of its glitches by viewing the resulting photographs as abstract art. He states,

The camera sometimes spills out 2 pictures at a time and the film often gets stuck in the gears, exposing and mangling the images in unpredictable ways.

Over time I’ve figured out how to control and accentuate aspects of the camera’s flaws but the images themselves are always a surprise. Each one is determined by the idiosyncrasies of the film and the camera.

The images look like landscapes taken on strange alien planets. He has titled the project Ruined Polaroids.

Tape Transfer Portraits Show Subjects Behind Their Own Altered Photos

Photographer Rory White's Rorshak Tape Transfer Series might look like some kind of surreal digital art, but the images were actually created without Photoshop. White shot portraits of his subjects, printed them out, and invited the subjects to paint, tear, and alter the prints. He then covered the image with packing tape, dropped it in hot water, and peeled off the paper on the back (like a Polaroid emulsion transfer). The semi-transparent image would then be hung from a stand, and the subject rephotographed while standing behind it.

Distress Your Film by Putting It Through a Dishwasher Cycle

There's a subgroup of film photographers who are dedicated to coming up with inventive new ways to distress film in order to achieve unexpected -- and occasionally beautiful -- results. Last year we shared that soaking film in rubbing alcohol does strange things to your images. Here's another crazy idea: put a roll of film through the dishwasher. Photographer Tom Welland did just that and ended up with some vintage-looking photos.

Soaking Film in Alcohol Gives Photos a Strange Look

Here's something to try if you feel like shooting some abstract analog photos: drop your film in some rubbing alcohol and let it soak for about ten minutes before shooting with it. Just be sure to let it dry out first lest you want to sanitize the inside of your camera. The resulting photographs should have a blue, green, and purple tint, along with tiny brown dots in random places. These photos were shot by Flickr user Casey Holford using soaked Kodak Ultramax film.

Abstract Pinhole Photos Created with Distressed Color Film

Drew Kunz has a pretty neat way of creating abstract pinhole photographs. Using a film canister as his "camera", he drills small holes into rolls of color film, distresses the film further with a small nail, and then develops the exposed film first with coffee and sodium carbonate, and finally with C-41.