Shadow & Light Monthly #32

Shadow & Light is a list of curated photography stories, features, techniques, news and inspiration that I’ve come across this month.

In this month’s edition we take an intimate look at New York’s Ballroom scene and use CT scans to peer inside instant cameras. We visit the Kodak plant to see how their film is made and look back at 12 bizarre cameras of the past.

So, with no further ado, I give you this month’s Shadow & Light Monthly. Go grab yourself a cuppa and enjoy this month’s selections below. Please let me know in the comments what you think.

Pick of the month – Kia Labeija’s personal portrait of New York’s ballroom scene

New York artist Kia Labeija’s new exhibit ‘Prepare My Heart‘ is an authentic look at ballroom culture and life with HIV. Fatigued by the way people with HIV were often portrayed — a majority of mass consumed stories defined by sensationalised pain — Kia was adamant about integrating joy and nodding to her roots in her work.

She began to photograph herself and her community through her intersectional lens: a queer woman of colour living with HIV and, at one point, incredibly entrenched in New York’s ballroom scene.

You can see more of Labeija’s incredible images over on i-D.

Additional reads

CT Scans of instant cameras reveal their inner workings

Since it’s development in the 1970s the CT scan has revolutionised diagnostic medicine. What better way to use this incredible technology than to use it to randomly look inside stuff?

Scan of the month is about honoring the fantastic engineering that surrounds us every day but often hides in plain sight. By performing CT scans of everyday objects, they discover hidden engineering decisions, such as in-ear microphones in AirPods or the near screw-less construction of a Polaroid camera.

As you know I love vintage cameras (and enjoy taking them apart) so when they scanned a load of instant cameras to see what was going on under the hood it really caught my eye. Take a look at what they found.

Visiting the Kodak plant in New York to see how they make their film

Destin, the aerospace engineer who runs the YouTube channel “Smarter Every Day“ has gained access to a private factory tour of Kodak’s New York plant. If you like to geek out about film then this will be right up your street.

It’s a three part series but you can watch part 1 below:

And finally – 12 bizarre cameras you forgot existed

Photography is among the greatest inventions of the 19th Century and it provides a detailed window into the past. In the past 200 or so years, the art of photography has changed and developed in immeasurable ways. So too has photography equipment changed in that time. From daguerreotypes to digital HD imagery, the types of cameras are as varied as flowers in a field.

Visit Slash Gear to take a look at 12 bizarre cameras from the past. I actually remember most of these!

Until next time…

I hope you enjoy the articles above. Don’t forget you can follow my Shadow & Light magazine over on Flipboard if you’d like to see more of what I’m reading if you like what you’ve seen here.