Making photograph-ish things with chemicals?

December 18, 2017 1:43 PM

I'm fascinated by the technique Sarah Schönfeld's used for her work All You Can Feel and more generally the idea of manipulating negatives with chemicals to create art. Does this technique have a name?

Also: Who else has used it? And how exactly does it work?

posted by snownoid to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

Best answer: Film manipulation seems like a good catch-all term, as used as a title for a Pinterest collection. Looking for other terms, I thought alternative process might apply, but on reflection it's not a case of intentionally processing the film, so I'll say it doesn't apply here.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:59 PM on December 18, 2017

As to the "how," the snarky, short answer is "chemistry!" The longer answer is that photographic processing is tricky, and doing something "wrong" will result in weird photos. See here for more examples serious photo/film distortion, but no explanation of how (it involves "a formula he prefers to keep secret").
posted by filthy light thief at 3:07 PM on December 18, 2017