Starting in Experimentation
This blog will be host to stories of process, reflection, politics, and experiences of analog photography.
It seems fitting to start with the story of a photo essay based in experimentation. This is a personal story about how, when I first found out that film can be developed using almost any liquid once adjusted to the right temperature and acidity, my mind jumped [in]to my own body. My mind went to the fluids that I naturally make, and make me, using them to develop images of myself, a self referential loop, a process that exposes the infinity held within identity.
What resulted was six months of more-difficult-than-expected collecting of body fluids: spit, blood, urine (this one was easy), sweat, etc. These fluids were then diluted to the appropriate volume and their acidity was lowered using washing soda. The bubbling, unpleasant mixtures in their graduated cylinders added to the witchy sense of the project. In order to keep costs low, I used one roll of black and white film, on which I had a friend take roughly the same self portrait 24 times. This image served as a sort of control to compare the different fluids to. To save costs, I blindly cut the roll up into roughly two frame pieces to develop individually. This resulted in some interesting double frames, almost diptych pieces, often with cuts breaking the middle of a frame.
As is unavoidable, life happens along the way in this six month period, and the background drama of relationships and experiences felt an interesting companion to the clinical film development notes I was taking. The two together form a medical log of sorts, a photo essay made via the development of film and self. The word development comes from old French roots of the meaning "to unfold or unwrap.” Which, is what it feels like, looking back at old photos of myself, old versions of myself, that come into clarity with hindsight. Current hard lessons remind me of the fluids I am, sloshing about, spilling over the edges. With time, they ease into sediment, and looking back I can make sense of who was developing. All of this, logged in medical notation format, so often void of all the surrounding complexity that results in the metrics recorded.
In this blog we will explore photography, the technical, but also the mess all around it. Photographs crystalize moments, which are inherently lodged amongst culture and society. Making images without considering the world they are plucked from does disservice to the massive impact, and responsibility, that we wield with this medium. Critical photographic thought is more important now than ever, as the world reaches image saturation. Now the actual mechanics of image making are often lost, automated over or smoothed out. This is the historical perspective from which a refocus on the analog becomes imperative to remember what we are actually doing.
King, Matthew. Body Fluids (2023)
