Purple Places: Experimental travel photography by Nick Collingwood

Nick Collingwood is one of our regulars at @lomographynyc and an active, brilliant, talented community member of the analogue photography world in the city. Nick is a motion designer but also runs a little side biz called Nick Collingwood Vintage where he shoots weddings on Super 8 film and Polaroids as well as dabbles in music videos, fashion, and short films.

He shoots so much film that it is hard to keep track with all of his work and we almost missed these wonderful rolls of LomoChrome Purple he shot a while ago on his travels.

Sometimes people ask who's the LomoChrome Purple for - what's the audience for a film like that? Nick Collingwood is a good example for the perfect photographer for the LomoChrome Purple. He grew up with his parents taking lots of film photos and his dad developing some if his own stuff. However, he himself didn't get into it until his final year of art school, where he was getting his degree in animation. Nick found an old Polaroid Land 250 packfilm camera and it quickly spiraled from there and finally peaked a few years later when he ran into a German filmmaker on his lunch break, who got him hooked on Super 8. Since then, he has gotten very involved with the NYC film community, with organizations like Lomography, Mono No Aware, Penumbra Foundation and Brooklyn Film Camera and has shot everything from Instant film and 35mm to 4x5 film and 16mm. In short: He loves experimenting!

And this is exactly, why Nick Collingwood is the perfect person to work with LomoChrome Purple.

"With film, one of the most fun parts is experimenting with different cameras and film types. Yet, as different as many of those films can be, they still give pretty consistent and standard colors whereas so much fun can be had when you really embrace the analogue side of things and push the creative envelope with color. Getting colors to pop in truly surprising ways is a huge perk with LomoChrome Purple. I tend to look for deep greens and reds that really get twisted and flipped with the film to really try to utilize the unique characteristics of how it treats those colors. And especially when shooting things and locations that we are so used to seeing in normal colors."

When it comes to picking the perfect location to shoot an experimental roll like this, it is no surprise, Nick decided to take it on his travels. What better place to shoot a film full of surprises than an unknown one? Experimental photographers are often big travelers, which sounds just logical. On his travels, Nick only shoots film now. He argues that travel photos tend to have very similar looks; everyone takes photos of the same viewpoints, plazas, etc. Therefore, he wanted to try and step away from the norm a bit and see what the world would look like on LomoChrome Purple film.

"Joshua Tree has been photographed a million times because it's truly a gorgeous park but it felt kind of like Mars on this film – especially with the bizarre plant life. Then my camera died halfway through the roll so I stashed the roll for a while until I went to Lisbon, where these castles and cathedrals have been seen for hundreds of years, but never on LomoChrome (I think!) so why not switch it up! Got some really cool results with the greens there!"

When Nick talks about his photography, we Lomographers can't help but tick off our imaginary ten golden rules in our head. He seems to live by all of them. Nick encourages people to simply start shooting! To find an old camera and go! He himself says that so much of what he has learned, he has learned by experimenting, testing and reading online.

"There's no greater teacher than your own results, both mistakes, and successes. Plus that's half the fun of film: not knowing how your roll will turn out and getting some awesome results back! And there are so many great communities both online and in person these days to get involved with and learn from those who have been shooting for years if not decades. Or just hit up people on Instagram! I get questions all the time there.

Check out Nick's wonderful Super 8 Films on his website and slide into his DM's on Instagram for some more advice.

written by birgitbuchart on 2018-12-08 #gear #people #lomochrome-purple