pure creative potential: film swap

on the flickr blog the other day (thank you flickr front page), i learned of a flickr group called "film swap." people shoot a roll of film in their analog camera, leave the tail sticking out then swap with someone else and double expose the roll - two different photographers, two different sets of eyes, many different subjects, preferably two distant locations. once i read about that, i knew i had to try it. so i loaded up my old canon AE-1 program and asked if anyone in the blog camp 365 group would like to do a little film swap with me.

the film swappers in the big film swap group are pretty advanced and into lomography, and naturally so am i (stop snickering there in the back), so i loaded it up with expired (in 2007) fujichrome sensia 400 so we could cross-process it in the C-41 chemicals in the end.

so basically it's got like this mind-blowing exponential creative potential going on. slide film, negative chemicals, analog cameras, two different photographers in two vastly different locations, expired film, and double exposures. one photographer's eye imposed on another. i'm so excited about this i can hardly contain myself.

and i'm hopping up and down happy that the lovely shokoofeh of a new simple something fame is who i'll be swapping with on this first attempt! she has the most amazing, artistic eye and that alone is mind-boggling. but for me, the whole notion of views of iran layered on views of denmark and vice versa adds so many layers of meaning to the creative potential that it very nearly takes my breath away. i feel like an entirely new topography will open up and you know how much i love topographies!

i've finished my first film and just loaded a second one. i made some mistakes with the first...i didn't set it on double the ISO as i should have, which may mean that shokoofeh's pictures don't shine through as much as they should. i was also so worried about losing the tail of the film when i rewound that i opened the camera a little bit early and spoiled the first 5 or 6 exposures. but hey, i learned two things and i won't make those mistakes again. and so i'm sure this second roll will be even better. i think i'll send both to shokoofeh. i really can't wait to see how this turns out.

 * * *

psst. for those of you who sew and quilt and aren't so into photography, there's a very cool new project here. i'm going to be doing it as well. after all, sometimes one should use the stash and not just stash the stash.