The session last Friday (a joint effort with Alasdair Hayden-Wright) was an attempt to encourage members to look beyond the safe predictability of digital photography. The message was: ‘Experiment, play, have fun’. Central to this was revisiting the analogue world through the use of film, with its delight in the unexpected and deferred gratification – also its unpredictability in the case of Alasdair’s experiments with outdated film. Instant film, e.g. Instax and Polaroid, was included. I also introduced non-camera photography in the form of cyanotypes and photograms.
Pinhole photography combined both analogue and digital – analogue with DIY cameras and digital with pinholes replacing the lens on digital cameras. Alasdair showed the striking effect of using old 35 mm film lenses on a digital camera and the fun to be had bodging unconventional (toy?) lenses onto DSLRs etc. Andrew Milbourn contributed a section on achieving infrared effect with digital cameras. The Lensball was introduced at the suggestion of Nick Kerry.
Photos: 1. Market Square, Cambridge, April 2019, Olympus Trip (Ilford XP2 film processed at Boots, low res scan); 2. Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge, 2018, Fuji Instax. See https://www.zimbushboy.org/photo-forum-2018-19 for more details