A Shitty Photo
July 11th, 2024
I’ve just been notified that I’ll have a photo in an upcoming exhibit at the LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon. It’s their annual “Analog Forever” show.
This photo has a story. I was in a bit of a disagreement with another photographer who was enamored of Holga photos. They insisted that only a Holga could produce the kind of photos they were after. Having worked with a Diana camera in the past, I knew that wasn’t really true. And I made the point that you could really use any shitty camera to make shitty photos. Then I went on and said I could tape a $3 drug store magnifying glass to the front of a camera and take shitty photos. They were certain that that was not possible.
So I did it. This was taken with a cheap magnifying glass taped to the front of my Speed Graphic. The focal plane shutter and ground glass focusing screen made this fairly simple. I used a Polaroid back with the wonderful and much missed 3000 speed peel-apart Polaroid film.
This was the first exposure I made with that rig. I was guessing at an exposure since I had no idea what the “aperture” was. I guessed wrong and severely overexposed that first sheet…with this result, which I consider pretty much perfect. Thanks to the lovely EM Hayes who helped me make a lot of art once upon a time.
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