PHOTOGRAPHY
You Called it Purple and Green
Using lomochrome purple to create photos that feel as though they are from an altered state of being
Finlay Hillman-Brown
How to capture an image that does not exist alongside our waking selves? It is the disconnect from the real world that makes dreaming so precious, a world shaped by our resting conscience, free to abstract itself from the strict rigour of our waking hours. Giving an image a dreamy, ethereal quality is a goal that has emerged in the mainstream alongside the revitalisation of film and wider acceptance of adapting vintage lenses to use on modern cameras. Perhaps this comes as a kickback to manufacturers attempts to achieve optical perfection, levels of inhuman sharpness and perfect tonality that seem as cold and mechanical as the modern world around us. But how best to translate sleeping whimsy to awakened image? Equipment and technique each have a part to play. Vintage lenses lack the modern coatings and multi-element designs that give modern glass it’s sharpness and true-to-life colours, instead imparting softness and low contrast that blunts the harsh edge of reality. Similar effects can be created with the increasingly popular pro-mist filters. However, vintage lenses can bring other desirable characteristics. One example is the famous Helios 44, which has beautifully swirly bokeh wide open, giving incredible separation to portraits and further removing the resultant image from reality.
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