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Steve Selvidge : Film Photographer

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This month marks the start of a new feature from Film Shooters Collective. Approximately once a month we will be featuring a film photographer on both the blog and our Instagram feed. The IG feature will be a one day feature exclusively highlighting the photographer’s work and the web post will tell you a bit more about the person behind the photos.

This month’s featured photographer is Steve Selvidge from Memphis, TN. You can see a lot more of his work at his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/SSS_Film_Pix/ . This photo of Steve is courtesy of his wife, Joann Self Selvidge.

In this post we will feature photos Steve has selected himself as representative of his work. As can be seen from the captions he likes to work with a variety of film stocks and cameras.

I asked Steve a bit about his journey as a film photographer and these are some of his replies.

When did you start shooting film and why?

I'm in my 40s, so I grew up with film.  I intentionally started shooting it again in late 2021. I grew up loving photography but was always single-minded in my pursuit of music and guitar.  That's what I do for a living.  When I started checking out the film photography community on IG, I got inspired to dig out my old Olympus 35RC, load it with whatever expired film I could find in my house, and make some pictures.  Something connected inside that was unlike any other thing that I had tried outside of music.

My son has a rare genetic disorder called Prader-Willi Syndrome, and that comes with fairly substantial behavioral issues.  I found that when I was out shooting, or making selections from the scans I had gotten back, all of the noise and stress seemed to go away.  Some people have yoga.  Some people have exercise.  I make pictures with film cameras. 

Do you have any favorite films to shoot with?

Ektar 100, E100, Cinestill 800T, Fuji Superia, Portra 400.


What are your favorite topics or style to shoot (eg., portraits, landscape, street, travel, etc.) ?

I'm drawn to color, contrast, and shape.  The look of my hometown, Memphis.  My favorite topic is that which moves me when I see it.  Occasionally, I get lucky with street photography. 

What type of camera do you use (if you have many like some of our members, choose one or two favorites) and why?

Typically, I will go out with three cameras. A compact rangfinder (Oly 35RC or Hi-Matic 7SII), a full size rangefinder (Leica M2 or Canon P), and some sort of SLR (Nikon F2 or Canon A1, usually with a 50mm)

Many of the images you selected for us are shot on a 400 ISO stock. Why do you like 400ISO?

A lot of that comes down more to the images that I chose, rather than my choice of film stock. Ektar 100 is one of my favorites!  It may also have something to do with the fact 400 ISO tends to be a bit more accessible and affordable compared to some others these days. 

Is there something in particular you look for in creating your compositions?

I would say color, shape, and anything that can catch my interest. When I see something that interests me or moves me, I try to compose and shoot in hopes getting back a photo that really excites me, moves me, or just makes me happy. When I pull it off, it’s exhilarating. 

It seems like there is an underlying current of seeing patterns in the ordinary. What are you thinking when you make these images? 

Sometimes I’m not thinking at all. Sometimes, I’m trying to pull a narrative out of what I’m seeing.

I have always loved photographers that have simply shown the world around them, so I guess that factors in there somewhere. I am very much drawn to patterns. Growing up as a skateboarder in the mid 1980s, I was always obsessed with the graphics, many of which were pattern based. And just as 80s skaters used the architecture around them for something other that what it was designed, so too can that architecture be reimagined into a different image. As a musician, I’ve spent over half my life on tour, often times walking in unfamiliar parts of different cities, staring out of the window of a van or bus. There’s usually something exciting around the next corner, and I try and stay open to that.  

Film Shooters Collective is grateful to Steve for sharing his beautiful images and his thoughts about film photography, and for consenting to be our first featured artist.

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FREE FILM : USA presented by worthless studios | Neil Hamamoto, the Free Film Team, and Amy Jasek

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Photo by Sean Jackson

Fellow FSC member Katie Mollon alerted me to the Free Film USA project a few weeks ago. I was online looking it up within moments, and subsequently sent a message to Neil Hamamoto to see if he would like to chat with me about it. Fortunately for all of us, his answer was yes! Haven’t hear about the project? Check out the press release:

FREE FILM : USA presented by worthless studios 

New York, NY - worthless studios is pleased to announce FREE FILM : USA, a conceptual public art project distributing and processing rolls of 35mm film across the United States for free. The project will be taking place in a 1973 Airstream trailer that has been converted into a professional darkroom and will travel across the country from August to mid-November 2019. The trailer will stop in 15-25 destinations, asking participants to take photographs based on their interpretation of the prompt ‘red, white and blue.’ The FREE FILM team will be using their stops as opportunities to interact with the local creative communities and gain insight on the unique vantage point of each location. 

Photography’s ability to capture a singular, unaltered moment in time is one of the most powerful tools of documentation. The medium’s history in America is particularly noteworthy. Introduced in conjunction with the westward expansion of the United States, photography has immortalized many of the most significant moments in the span of our country’s modern history. Though nearly 200 years old, film photography continues to be celebrated in this technological age for its raw, unfiltered and poignant ability to archive instances otherwise lost. 

FREE FILM : USA’s celebration of film photography is specific to its goal of capturing an unbiased look at the country. Participants are given free rein to interpret the words ‘red, white and blue’ as they see fit – whether focusing on its ties to patriotism and the experience of being American or how the words more broadly fit into their lives. Through this method of crowdsourcing, FREE FILM : USA will document an impartial, multifaceted, and well-rounded glimpse into present-day American life. 

With each stop, the project seeks to activate the local artistic community and encourage creative participation. Once complete, the project will culminate in a curated body of photographs forever memorializing this particular time in the United States and furthering the imagistic archive of American history. 

The FREE FILM team is made up of artists from a number of different backgrounds celebrating the arts in numerous modes of creation. This project will be a continuation of their interdisciplinary yet cohesive collaboration that has been established while alongside each other at worthless studios. 

worthless studios provides space, materials, technical assistance and resources for aspiring artists of all backgrounds to realize their artistic visions. Founded in 2016 by Neil Hamamoto, and incorporated as a nonprofit in 2019, worthless studios was conceived as a platform committed to knowledge exchange, manufacturing, and public art. The studio has begun to showcase work from new artists in a number of different mediums including sculpture, painting, photography and performance. 

Release date: June 3, 2019 Exhibition: FREE FILM : USA presented by worthless studios Dates: August 2019 – November 2019 Media Contact: Maria Vogel, team@worthlessstudios.com 

The Team

Neil was kind enough to answer a few questions about the project; my questions are in bold, and his responses follow.

What was the genesis of this project?

I came up with the concept back in October of 2018. I was offered a prime piece of retail space on New York's Canal street and wanted to produce a project under my studio's name - worthless studios - instead of using the space to exhibit my personal sculptural work. worthless studios is a 501c3 non-profit focused on helping new artists start their careers. We provide support by way of studio space, materials and tools. Sean Jackson had been working out of the darkroom in the studio since inception and in thinking about how we could produce an interdisciplinary project FREE FILM : CANAL was born.

I absolutely love the idea of the mobile darkroom in the Airstream! That's been a little dream of mine for a while, but it really is just a dream. How was that process, in terms of sourcing one and getting it ready? I saw some photos on your instagram that make it look like it was a hefty undertaking.

Yes, the Airstream build itself was a huge huge undertaking. We turned a disgusting 1973 Airstream Land Yacht into a professional darkroom, office and exhibition space in about 5 months.

The Airstream build is really another example of how we work collaboratively as a studio. Another artist who has been working out of the studio - Free Tripp - was a huge contributor to making the Airstream possible. He designed the entire plumbing system and electrical system and of course contributed tons of hours to the physical building of it. Caroline Doyle (actually a local New York comedian) was the third set of hands that helped make the Airstream possible. We had to learn a lot as we went but it was an extremely rewarding project in itself that we all get to enjoy now that we are on the road and so far so good.

I'm interested in knowing more about y'all as a group. The press release says "The FREE FILM team is made up of artists from a number of different backgrounds celebrating the arts in numerous modes of creation. This project will be a continuation of their interdisciplinary yet cohesive collaboration that has been established while alongside each other at worthless studios." So, who are you? What sort of art do you each make? And would you like to talk about any collaborations from the past?

I'm Neil and I'm a conceptual artist from New York and the founder of worthless studios. I typical make sculptural work from wood, metal and other prefabricated objects. My most recent works and projects recontextualize commercially manufactured objects to invoke the feeling of newness. I like to revive the identity of outdated objects in order to offer a glimpse of the future present through a nostalgic lens and questions the worth of innovation. Before pursuing sculpture as a full time career, I studied mechanical engineering - product design, and worked in the wood and metal shops for Jeff Koons.

Sean Andrew Jackson has been working to create a portrait series of hand-selected artists each of whom are unique contributors to society, and/or burgeoning artists on the rise. Using an intimate lo-fi monochromatic approach, his aim is to depict these characters as they are in daily life - animated and down-to-earth - behind the scenes and façade of social or commercial media.

Jackson is an American social-documentary photographer born in rural Virginia, now based in New York City focusing on exploring small groups of people. After studying journalism at the University of North Carolina, Jackson spent a period of time working in the newsroom at CNN before moving to Manhattan to apprentice for photographer and icon Bruce Weber.

He is deeply fascinated by the power of people and aims to pair his photography and film alongside his love for anthropological storytelling.

Free is an interdisciplinary artist currently working in New York. His works in sculpture, performance, and sound are responses to the relationship of the interior and exterior and the transmissions of the imaginary into what is real. Since 2018 Free has been working at worthless studios as an artist assistant to Neil.

Caroline is a comedian and writer living and performing in Brooklyn. She grew up in San Francisco and has performed stand up in Chicago, Berlin, the Bay Area and New York, as well as at comedy festivals like SF Sketchfest, the DC Comedy Festival, and Big Little Comedy Fest.

She’s a contributor at Reductress and has been published in the Pink Canoe and Little Old Lady Comedy. Catch her at her monthly shows Stacy at Rebecca's Bar in Brooklyn and Jokes Engineered at Caveat on the LES. Cheers!

Photo by Neil Hamamoto

How much film did you acquire for the project?

Quite a bit! We budgeted around 100 rolls per city and are stopping in 18 cities across the country.

How did you decide what cities to visit?

First and foremost I wanted to visit cities that I had not been to before. That list consisted of Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Portland, Santa Fe, Austin, New Orleans, Birmingham and Asheville. Of course there are tons of cities that I've never seen in the US so then it was deciding which cities were big enough to have a film photography market but small enough to not have the access to a darkroom or analog photo network. I also tried to keep the diverse range of US cities in mind and evenly balance our stops

Photo by Neil Hamamoto

How's it been going so far? How's the response been?

So far so good! The response from participants and visitors is always positive and I anticipate more of the same as we continue onward. We've finished processing all of the Detroit rolls and have made some selections to be printed. We've also started processing Milwaukee rolls and are excited to start building this exhibition on the theme.

Samples of work from participating photographers, from the Detroit stop:

Photo by Sean Jackson

Connect

Everything you need to know about Free Film: USA is on their website, and you can connect with them on Instagram. Join in! Visit them at one of their upcoming stops.