Distressed Negatives

So far, I’ve asked you to be careful with your negatives (they are precious, after all!)

Now, I’m telling you to destroy them, touch them, scratch them, draw on them…. mess them up!

Distressed Negatives is what happens when you purposely ruin a negative and enlarge it in the darkroom to make a photo print. The result is abstracted, bizarre, and random.

Your Assignment:

You will make one print of a distressed negative (full or cropped)

Ideas to “distress” your negative:

• Scratch into the negative using tacs, nails, screws, ect. (you can even write words / draw pictures if you are careful)
• Cut pieces away (you can cut and tape back together)
• Hybrid two different negatives together
• place ink / sharpie on parts of your negative
• Taping / glue objects onto the negative
• bleaching (I have chemicals but you need to ask me and take proper safety measures)
• scraping them on a rough surface like brick walls, cement, rocks…..run over them with your bike…. I’m curious.

Please DO NOT:

• Do tacky things like hearts, peace signs, and smiley faces; this ain’t Grade 6
• Burn edges with lighters (sorry pyros, I cannot allow fire)
• Use Course Language or inappropriate imagery.