Film-Swappin' Across the Atlantic (Roll One)
In a recent blog post I introduced Mia BloomBecker, her photography and 'film-swaps'. Mia has been sharing her film-swaps on Instagram for a while now, and as I was intrigued by the idea of them I asked if I could take part.
Agfa HDC Plus - the roll of film that Mia sent to me, all the way from Santa Cruz, California.
Digitising the film with my camera & macro lens.
The film is illuminated by an LED panel.
Using Adobe Lightroom, I turn the negative...
...into a positive.
So what is a film-swap? It involves one person photographing on a roll of film, winding it back to the start and then sending it to someone else to photograph over before it's developed. The result is similar to double-exposures where you have two images mixed together, but in this case you also have a combination of two people's different approaches to photography.
It's down to luck how well the photos line up together, so you are prepared for the fact that the photos might not turn out well at all! Fortunately I think we got some great results from this first roll (shot on expired roll of Agfa HDC Plus film). I particularly like how a few photos worked well in a sequence so that I could stitch them together to create a long panoramic-style photo like this one:
We have shot another two rolls which I will share in the future. For now check out the results from this first roll. We both took our photos where we live; Mia in Santa Cruz, California, and myself in Liverpool, England.
Telephone box at Exchange Flags, Liverpool.
Mia: "The photo of the beach with the awesome clouds is right near my house. I can hear the waves from my window at night sometimes."
The Royal Liver Building, Liverpool.
Liverpool's waterfront combined with autumnal/winter leaves.
TATE Liverpool combined with autumnal/winter leaves.
Old Liverpool post sign.
Liverpool ONE shopping centre combined with the Nickelodeon Theatre, Mia's favourite independent movie theatre in downtown Santa Cruz.
Chinatown, Liverpool.
Mia: "This was taken in San Francisco on New Year's Day. The Roxie is a theatre that happened to be across the street from where we had brunch."
Chinatown dragon lampost.
So that was roll one - thanks for looking! What did you think of the results? Did you have any favourites? Let me know below and be sure to subscribe to see how roll two and three turned out.