Digital photo by analog development

 

​​This work creates an exploratory dialogue between digital and analog photography, using a development process that blurs the boundaries between the two mediums.

 

The scratched textures, stains, and grain create a sense of a physical object that has transformed, almost as if it were a tangible artifact rather than a mere image. The result is a photograph with a weight and presence reminiscent of an archival piece or an object eroded by time, despite originating as a digital file.

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The process itself shaped this unique self-portrait:

I photographed my own reflection with a digital camera, edited the image, printed it as a negative, and then took it into the darkroom for analog development using the photogram technique. Each stage in this process distanced the image from its original form, adding new layers of meaning - deconstructing and reconstructing the visual identity of the self.

 

It is a self-portrait, but not in the traditional sense. The figure remains, yet its chemical materiality has turned it into something transient and dissolving, like a memory or an echo of what once was.