The Clone Photography Magician Who Shoots on 35mm Film

Brooklyn-based fine art photographer Johnny Tang has spent the past five years working on an impressive series of clone photographs. Some of the images are created with over 100 photos… shot entirely on 35mm film.

Tang has titled his project, “World of One.”

Each composite photo is created with individual 35mm photos of Tang, shot with the help of an assistant. After preparing all the shots by setting the camera up on a tripod, Tang jumps into position in the scene to pose for each version of himself.

“I choose to shoot these images on film, because the colors present in film (and absent in digital photography) remind me of pictures from my childhood,” Tang says. “The color of the film is also nostalgic for an aesthetic of a different time, which is crucial to making the dreamlike world I’m presenting seem all the more familiar.”

Tang says he began the project in 2010 as a way to cope with the grief of a close friend passing away. The work evolved over time, switching from digital to film. He also adopted the theme of black and white jackets as a way to tell stories within each frame.

Since everything is shot on film, Tang doesn’t know whether his shots work well together until all the developed frames are scanned into a computer and the editing process begins.

Here’s some more of Tang’s work from over the past half decade:

You can find more of Tang’s work and follow along with “World of One” over on his website.

Image credits: Photographs by Johnny Tang and used with permission