Natalia Price-Cabrera - #NoFilter: Get Creative with Photography

#NOFILTER

Published in 2019 by

Laurence King Publishing Ltd

361373 City Road

London EC1V 1LR

United Kingdom

email:

www.laurenceking.com

Text 2019 Natalia Price-Cabrera

Natalia Price-Cabrera has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78627-407-6

Design: Mariana Sameiro

Vector line drawings: Akio Morishima

Printed in China

#NOFILTER

Get creative with photography

Natalia Price-Cabrera

Laurence King Publishing

Contents

Make a photo collage from your stationery cupboard

Defocus an image to create blur and soft edges

Deceive the eye with a miniature scene

Create a fantasy scene using household objects

Use mirrors, glasses or binoculars to distort reality

Create ethereal images using multiple exposures

The poor mans tilt-shift lens

Create special effects with the contents of your kitchen cupboard

Use scanners and apps to create cameraless photography

Combine papercraft and photography

Photographing the same scene at different times

Distort your image with a makeshift lens

Take lens-less photographs using this ancient technique

Use apps to emulate light leaks

Make woven portraits from your photos

Create motion blur using a turntable

Create a miniature shadow theatre

A contemporary take on 19th-century collage

Combine an old process with modern techniques

Discover the past with a vintage camera

Use free association to inspire your ideas

Print your image onto fabric

Erase elements of a photograph using analogue methods

Create the illusion of three dimensions

Take a needle and thread to your old photos

Create saturated imagery using artificial lighting

Combine photographs and photograms for a new look

Make pop art using an early photography technique

Get creative with your old negatives

Create botanical art using a light box

Take a photograph from under the water

Make decorative pieces with this traditional technique

A special effect using steam

Make your own scene and shoot it

Through the Viewfinder (TTV) photography

Create double exposures in-camera

Discover a process from the dawn of photography

Submerge flowers in water and ink

Experiment with extremely long exposures

Handcraft your photo using digital techniques

Capture a scene from the sky

Move the camera to create blur

Use the sun to print from digital negatives

Experiment with an old photo booth technique

Landscape photography from a moving train

Create light drawings using long exposure

Use two old processes to create an eerie image

Cheat the effect of double exposure

Create silhouettes using a multiple pinhole technique

Overlap exposures on an entire roll of film

How to print on almost anything

Superimpose several unrelated images

Printing in sunlight

Hand-tint your images to emulate a vintage look

Make a misty scene using welding glass

Create random works of art using milk with other liquids

Try modern ideas with this old technique

Take time with this time-honoured process

Introduction

With our cameras in our pockets we are all photographers, and the built-in creative functions on our apps and on social media mean we can edit and share on the go. However, such image-making is by its very nature loaded with limitations, and there is now a palpable backlash against the ubiquitous mindset of click, add filter, post.

Photography doesnt have to be so transient and throwaway, and there is so much more fun to be had with it. #NoFilter is for anyone who wants to take their new-found creativity beyond the touch of a button. Replete with ideas for new techniques, processes and subjects to try, this book is a source of inspiration for image-makers of all abilities, illustrated with incredible work by photographers from all over the world who are pushing and developing their artistic boundaries. The scope of projects featured is vast, and you will discover work that innovates while applying traditional shooting, processing and printing techniques; ideas that involve hacks and makes; work that combines media; and images that arrest and inspire the reader in equal measure.

The power of photography is boundless. It can beguile, revolt, intrigue, record, invent, flatter, sell, tell a story or create artifice. A photograph is often the result of a fleeting, spur-of-the-moment reaction to something, or a lengthy, deliberated construct that has involved hours of thought and preparation. However, the act of capturing the moment is not always the end goal. There can be infinite processes thereafter that the photographer ruminates over, whether that is how to print the image or in many cases how to deconstruct it. There is no wrong or right approach. So get ready to be creatively stimulated as you turn the pages of this book and let the images and ideas contained within springboard your own image-making imagination. Have fun!

Naomi Vona, Fortuna

Cut, stick and glue

Make a photo collage from your stationery cupboard

Why not experiment with coloured pens and washi tape to selectively obscure parts of existing images you might have? This is exactly what Italian artist Naomi Vona does. With the use of fluorescent pens, stickers, washi tape and glue, Naomi teleports her collection of black-and-white vintage images into a psychedelic fantasy future world that leaps out at the viewer. You can use your own images or trawl jumble sales and second-hand shops for old photos and postcards to overhaul with a face lift.

Naomis signature decorative mark is a crochet-effect eye mask (as seen opposite), and the artist considers herself a photo and video archival parasite but in a good way! I draw portals on old photos because I believe that in some way they can allow me to travel in time and space.

You will need:

a photograph or a postcard, fluorescent marker pens, washi tape, stickers, acrylic paint, glue

Bill Armstrong, Unspoken #1502

What do you see?

Defocus an image to create blur and soft edges

By deliberately defocusing an image you can bring into question exactly what it is the viewer is looking at. To create this image, Bill Armstrong assembled a collage from a wide range of sources, spanning pop culture to art history, and then subjected them to a series of manipulations, such as photocopying, cutting, painting and collaging, before photographing his construct.