This week’s Member Moment features work by Film Club Member Maddie Milliken, who explores the passage of time through her cyanotypes. Scroll down to see her pictures and to read the interview!
PL: What got you interested in photography?
MM: My dad and brother had an interest in photography while I was growing up so, naturally I started picking up a camera as well. My dad would take me out to places to photograph like antique stores, car shows, and abandoned buildings around my hometown. It wasn’t until my first year of college that I started picking up film photography and found a love for alternative photographic processes.
PL: What type of camera do you shoot with?
MM: For shooting digital I use a Canon EOS R5 with both a portrait lens and a 24mm-105mm zoom lens. For film, most of the time I’ll use a Canon AF35ML.
PL: What other mediums do you like to work with?
MM: I love working with cyanotypes. I discovered the process whilst researching for a project involving blueprints and realized they were a type of cyanotype. I really enjoyed its simplicity while also realizing that there's endless possibilities to what you could print a cyanotype on. I’d also like to introduce more physical mediums into my cyanotypes like yarn, metal, or collage.
PL: Are there any mediums you would like to explore in the future?
MM: I’d love to work with tintypes in the future. I had the opportunity to make one with another photographer once and admired the history and the process. But I’ve got a lot of research to do before trying that! And, I want to start making anthotypes and experiment with what kinds of natural materials I can use to produce prints.
PL: Can you share some more info about your work that is featured in The Kitchen Sink?
MM: Older architecture has always been an interest of mine and growing up in and around Philadelphia, an incredibly historical city, has allowed me to appreciate a lot of beautiful structures. However, within the past decade many structures integral to the city’s history have been demolished in favor of new construction aesthetics. So, with this project I decided to find images of some of these buildings before their demolitions and archive them by turning them into cyanotypes. And to represent this “tearing away” of history, I layered and aligned images I had taken of these replacement structures and tore into the cyanotype print to reveal them underneath. My goal is to maintain the memory of the structure's importance to the history of the city while also understanding that change is sometimes inevitable.
PL: What do you enjoy most about film and/or digital photography and what is challenging about it?
MM: I think I like the uncertainty of film photography. Even when you think you’ve shot everything under the perfect settings, the film didn’t catch on the spool, you messed up the temperatures during developing stages, or you failed to correct the focus on the enlargers for your prints. You may end up with a completely different product to what you think it might be but I think the best images, good or bad, are the ones that you’re surprised by because you can learn either way.
PL: Do you have any goals or ideas of how you want to grow this collection?
MM: I’d love to make a few more of these types of work but produce them on a larger scale as these are only made with 8x11 watercolor paper. I have many other images of buildings like these but I have to look further into finding resources for space and materials. I also make similar images involving familial history by highlighting storytellers of familial history that I’m hoping to expand into multiple series.
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