InstaArt

It is 2013.

Instagram sold for $1,000,000,000.

Kodak has filed Chapter 11.

Visual Supply Company is making a killing.

Content often comes in second, no, third place these days. Somewhere behind mass appeal and instant gratification lies the most important aspect of art.

What are you saying? How are you saying it?

I spent my early years as a self-taught photographer eagerly learning the dialect of DSLRs and Photoshop. I fiddled with sliders and presets desperately trying to find a voice and a speech pattern that spoke what my eyes saw.

Digital photography talked in monotone. Apps and 3rd party filters became its Auto Tune.

During a meet with a Bro from Craigslist to purchase some vintage Nikkor glass, I laid hands on the camera that would wind up altering my life. Attached to the 50mm f/1.4 that brought me to this gas station parking lot was a dirty, beaten, worn but not worn out Nikkormat FTn. It’s silver body, assembled in the late 60s, did nothing to hide the numerous dents, dings, and engravings from New Trier High School.

Accustomed to the plastic clad Nikon D3000 I used at the time, I was surprised at the heft of the FTn. The seller, having no time for my curious stares, interrupted my ogling with the phrase, “I’ll throw it in the deal for free.”

I was now the owner of my first film SLR. From there I would learn the language of Kodak and Fujifilm and Delta..

Emulsions and chemical reactions... Grain, dynamic range.

I also picked up on the ‘accents’ that programs try to recreate with algorithms and formulas. The light leaks, chromatic shifts and character in distressed film all became the color of the words I shot.

It was this heavily accented dialogue that inspired what you’re now reading and viewing. The gritty and genuine results of a haphazardly loaded roll of film, a 46 year old camera, battered lens, and a hot Summer’s day in Memphis coming together to make, what I’d like to call, “InstaArt”.

T

Memphis Soul Collective (.com) Copyright IESEF, 2013 IESEF@IESEF.com