Obsolete & Discontinued (2015-16)

A video contribution to a group photography project using expired darkroom paper – trying to get old analogue video kit to work.

VHS, video 8, analogue title generator and photogram animation

Obsolete & Discontinued is a collaborative project led by photographer and specialist photographic printer Mike Crawford. Mike inherited a variety of old, expired, and in some cases discontinued photographic paper. He shared the paper with around 50 photographers so that they could create new work with it.

Helen Nias’ contribution to this project consists of 10 photograms, created from paper negatives of digital images of analogue video technology.

These have been exhibited as prints, an animation (below), and feature in a two minute video piece, Obsolete & Discontinued (Here’s Something For You To Play With) (above). In this film the photograms are visible in the background and slowly reveal their contents as the original video plays in the foreground.

My contribution to Mike Crawford's 'Obsolete & Discontinued' project: Ten 8x10 prints on Ilfospeed Pearl RC Grade 1, created in the @cameraclubuk's darkroom, and exhibiting at @revelatfestival this weekend. I hooked my analogue camcorder up to @jackcast3000's CRT TV via his video title generators, recording myself setting the kit up onto VHS and video 8 tapes. I then took photos of these recordings playing back on the TV, using my Canon G12 (RIP). Next I desaturated the images and inverted the colours, printed them onto A4 printer paper using a regular inkjet printer, and contact printed them onto the paper. This is what happens when I turn them back into moving images.

A post shared by Helen Nias (@helennias) on May 24, 2016 at 10:19am PDT

Photographer Mike Crawford gives an update on the Obsolete & Discontinued project at LAPC's Dec meeting at the Camera Club.

A post shared by Helen Nias (@helennias) on Dec 9, 2015 at 6:24am PST

Helen’s contributions to the Obsolete & Discontinued project celebrate the novelty of using obsolete analogue photographic and video technology, and acknowledge the complications of getting it to work in the first place.

Find more information about the project on Tumblr.

A post shared by Jack Quick (@jackcast3000) on Dec 30, 2015 at 1:32pm PST

Thank you

Thank you to Michael Wildsmith for creating the film soundtrack, and Mike Crawford for leading the project which I am proud to be a part of.

Thank you to Jack Quick, Brandon Butterworth and David Champion for the analogue video kit - the space and the means to shoot, edit on VHS, and then edit the final film digitally.

Photograms created in the Camera Club's darkrooms.