Last summer I saw some atypical wall art (in a bar, in Jersey) that caught my attention and got my creative wheels turning. In this bar is a light box hanging on the wall with 35mm slides mounted under glass. The slides are backlit by they light box. I liked the way that it made me get up close to see what each of the individual images were. I decided that I wanted to replicate the piece, putting my own spin on it and using my own images. This was part of the impetus of picking up a manual 35mm camera again this year for the first time in probably 20 years. It has been a lot of fun shooting with that thing, even though it is one more camera to lug around. I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible though, using only a 50mm lens and shooting mostly natural light. This way I can avoid being weighed down with extra glass and strobes.

Last week, I had the first roll of slides developed. There were a couple of images that I really liked. But, for sure Sturgeons law was in full effect. I put together a little makeshift light box to get an idea of the aesthetic. Just for fun, the top image is linked to the full resolution file. I had to compromise on the image quality quite a bit to get the file size small enough for a manageable upload. But I feel like there are still enough pixels to get the gist. I also included a couple of details in the images below.

After shooting 2 or 3 more rolls, I plan to start building the light box. Stay tuned! Ha.