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.

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

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.