Ash Bell Photography

Transfer of life from animal body to technological media || she/they

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It's your best life if it's the life that you're living right now

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View from Mt. Nebo

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Plant Parlor in Russellville Arkansas

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These two are my favorite pictures from the grand canyon.

The outlook those people are on has no railing, so if you slip and fall it's on you. I'm glad I captured a small sense of how high up you are on the rim. There's so much further to fall below the frame, no way I could capture it in one shot with a 50mm lens.

When I got the scans back for this roll I couldn't remember why I took a picture of some of the plants leading down into the canyon, until I zoomed in and saw a bag of Takis caught in one of the bushes. I wonder where that bag is right now.

[ash-bell]

Gonna post my photography here cause what else am I using this account for anyways

Camera is an Olympus OM-1

This was my second roll of film I ever shot, some Kodak Ultramax 400

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Gran canyon

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Afternoon on Figueroa Street

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A statue is the easiest portrait you'll ever take

📸 Olympus OM-1

🎞️ Kodak Ultramax 400

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If you can't appreciate a tree with cool bark we can't hang out

📸 Olympus OM-1

🎞️ Rollei Retro 400S

[ashbellphotos]

Local flora and fauna of highland park

📸 Olympus OM-1

🎞️ Rollei Retro 400S

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Union Station

📸 Olympus OM-1

🎞️ Rollei Retro 400S

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Accidental renaissance is out, accidental noir is in

📸 Olympus OM-1

🎞️ Rollei Retro 400S

[kummatty]

The gelatin in film stock was made from the hide, bones, cartilage, ligaments, and connective tissue of calves (considered the very best), sheep (less desirable), and other animals who passed through the slaughterhouse. Six kilograms of bone went into a single kilogram of gelatin. Eventually, the demands of photographic industries generated so much need for animal byproducts that slaughterhouses became integrated into the photographic production chain. Controlling the supply chain became key to Kodak's success. In 1882, as Kodak began to grow as a company, widespread complaints of fogged and darkened plates stopped production. The crisis almost ruined Kodak financially and resulted in the company tightly monitoring the animal by-products used in gelatin. Decades later, a Kodak emulsion scientist discovered that cattle who consumed mustard seed metabolized a sulfuric substance, enhancing the light sensitivity of silver halides and enabling better film speeds. The poor-quality gelatin in 1882 was due to the lack of mustard seeds in the cows' diet. The head of research at Kodak, Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees, concluded, "If cows didn't like mustard there wouldn't be any movies at all." By controlling the diet of cows who were used to make gelatin, Kodak ensured the quality of its film stock. As literary scholar Nicole Shukin reflects, there is a "transfer of life from animal body to technological media." The image comes alive through animal death, carried along by the work of ranchers, meatpackers, and Kodak production workers.

—Siobhan Angus, Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography

[ashbellphotos]

Starting this page with my favorite picture I've taken so far.

📸 Olympus OM-1

🎞️ Rollei Retro 400S