Creating Lightleaks

Lightleaks are accidents we always welcome. Too bad they don’t happen often. You can actually “make” it happen but there are risks involved. You can end up exposing the entire roll or ruin picture perfect shots. So if you are willing to take that risk, this tip might help you.

Actually there only a couple ways to “force” a lightleak. First option, open the back of your camera while still loaded with film. As the lomo golden rule states, “be fast”. Although the context here is different. Open and close the rear door quickly, preferably in a darkly lit room. Repeat this to your heart’s content after shooting several frames and decide which shot you want those “accidental” leaks.

In the photos below, I opened and closed the rear door a couple of times and I got varying strengths of lightleaks in most of the roll.

The second approach is more radical. After finishing off one roll, rewind the roll but leave a leader. Then go to a completely dark room (the darkness of the room will determine extend of your lightleaks). Pull out the entire film from the canister. Yep, crazy right? Then manually rewind back the entire roll to the canister. In this case, you exposed your entire roll! I did that to the shots below. Note that some photos are nearly covered with light leaks and some just have a faint leak.

So if you want lightleaks in your photos, you may try out the above techniques and get ready to be surprised with the unpredictable results.

written by stitch on 2011-11-23 #gear #tutorials #tip #camera #tipster #accident #ligthleaks #simulating