∴One More Reason to Play∴
I wrote a few months ago about the value of play in your photo process. What I was speaking about there focused mostly on how positive an effect it can have on your creativity and the photos you make. There was something I failed to mention though: play is good for your headspace too. This week, a little addled from back to back photoshoots (one was on a yacht(!)) and all the time that editing these shoots entails, I found myself at my desk with a free hour while I waited on some client feedback.
The feedback related to the images made on the shoot I wrote about last week. I’d been sent a reference for the editing and I was waiting to see if the company was satisfied with my effort. I quite liked the colour grade they’d requested, but there was a digital quality to it that felt like it didn’t perfectly suit the images.
I decided to keep working on them for myself, but the fogginess I was feeling from all the editing screen time made the idea of more slider tinkering seem a little bleak. So I thought I’d try something different: I took out a few sheets of cheap calligraphy paper1, chose ten of my favorite images from the shoot, and started printing. I printed two-to-a-sheet, and a total of five sheets.
The prints were already looking more interesting to me, with a rougher texture and a sort of sunk-in quality to the colour. This is pretty cheap paper though, and there was a reddish cast I needed to deal with. At first I thought about photographing the sheets, but I decided to scan them instead. I did this for a simple reason: the further away from my typical process I made this, the more my head felt clear and my energy spiked.
I scanned the images and did some very simple tweaking in Photoshop. The scan had flattened the images a little too much, so I reintroduced some contrast, corrected the cast and removed a bit of dust here or there. The result was a set of images much more interesting to me than the original grade.
I sent them off to the company, and while they’re happy with the original grade for this lookbook, they were interested in making an editorial soon using this process. If and when it happens I’ll share it here first!
The reason I’m telling you this is because at some point while I was plugging in my scanner and the printer pulsed mechanically in the background I realized my head was totally clear. I felt completely awake. I’d like to feel completely awake more often than I do, and I think taking time to play is one of the best ways to do that.
I repeated this process with a few of my own 35mm images from 2018, just for fun. I’ll leave you with a few of those and a question: What else should I try? I had a lot of fun making these images, and would love to hear your suggestions for something new.
Cheers,
Chris
The same paper I used in my first DIY Serial Music test.