Ben Felten – cyanotypes and multi exposures on film
Hey everybody, welcome to this week’s podcast with me your host the Phlogger. As I explore this medium of photography and play around I become interested in many areas. One of these that always springs to mind is a double exposure. I remember when running my competitions with Kodak Alaris that there were a few multi-exposure entries. In fact, one of Phlogger is the creative genius of Andrew Walmsley. A blogger, podcaster and photographer. Bringing you articles, tips n tricks to help photographers. The phlogger interviews photographers, models, studio owners and people in the industry. He shoots architecture, portraiture, street and film (35mm and medium format). Ben Felten won a memorable mention and obviously stuck in my conscious mind. So I thought hell I had not interviewed someone who does this consistently with film so let’s get him on the show. Ben was very willing and I couldn’t wait to talk with him.
Now bear in mind Ben is from France, but has lived in a few countries and currently living in Hong Kong. So if you are expecting a heavy French accent you might be surprised.
Anyway, Ben’s a family man like myself and a very decent guy. After speaking with Ben I’ve come up with the idea of an act of random kindness every day. So you search for someone on Instagram and share their picture on your story – simple. it would be great to hear of you doing this too. Remember karma everyone, do something nice for someone and feel positive.
So this podcast is all about Ben’s pursuit of happiness with multi-exposure and his human nature project. It’s a learning journey and he talks to us about the technical and conceptual aspects too, so very useful.
So in this one we discuss:
- multi-exposure
- background choices
- shooting Xpan
- studio vs home sessions
- negative space vs busy backgrounds
- cyanotypes
- photograms
- hong kong restrictions
- zines
Other Links
We discuss the beginning of cyanotypes with (botanist) Anna Atkins with her book on plant life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Atkins
Chris Relander – www.christofferrelander.com
Ben Links
Etsy – https://www.etsy.com/shop/WideWorldPhotography
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/benfelten/
Friends of the show
I have discussed David from FilmDev in this show and how he’s developed all my 120 colour work for a few years. Great work guaranteed and as an example, he only charges £4 for small files with delivery & TIFF’s! Large scans are £8 compared to.
Do check them out – https://filmdev.co.uk/
Other friends are:
Static Age – https://www.staticage.co.uk/
Chroma Camera – https://chroma.camera/