I recently got hold of a roll of Harman RED; it’s a 35mm redscale film stock. Redscale film is film that
is wound backwards in the film canister; that is, it’s wound in a way that you shoot through the layers of
the emulsion back-to-front. This results in a large amount of the light entering the camera being absorbed by the
red backing layer, resulting in images that are saturated with reds and oranges! You end up with these wonderfully
strange and apocalyptic pictures. On top of this, some film scanning machines can get a little confused by this and
try to correct the image by massively upping the missing blue levels in the image, which gives you this incredible
orange-to-pink-to-blue gradient over the image. Let’s tell a little narrative with these dramatic crimson captures!
Scaffolds give way to the infinite beyond above, gleaming a dark bloody rust as the rickety spindles of humanity
stab the air in their sickly triumph.
Their chromed godsblood is spilled upon the ground. The parched earth soaks up what it is owed.
False eyes peer from every edifice, searching for malcontent in the tired faces of long-gone wanderers. They report
back their findings to an unlistening void, a silent obelisk, alone and proud in the data center that no longer
stirs the dust with its fitful, air-conditioned gasping.
Their trust in us was broken. Promises unkept ring hollow to beings of unfiltered loyalty.
Ingenuity drove the gears of malice. A twisted celebration of the force which ground the masses into slurry.
Homes within factories. Work within sleep. Solace within terror. Peace within war. All but mere steps from
eachother, as the borders grew thin and weary.
And so, as with all towers that race towards the heavens, the fall was at once sudden and glacial. And with time,
the birds and plants regrew in the nooks and crannies of artifice, turning it once more back into nature. Those who
were ground down into the earth sprang forth out of it again, the dancing union of clay and thought once again
spiralling into new shapes to spite the entropy.
And so our story ends, as a new one begins.
(Can you tell I’ve been playing a lot of Caves of Qud recently?) Here’s a bonus picture where the film slipped and
stopped advancing in my camera, and I got a triple exposure of a building, a cup of coffee, and a dog someone was
kind enough to let me take a picture of.
Have a good one, folks!
