Lately I’ve been exploring different ways to manipulate my images after the fact. Since I’m not great at Photoshop creating realistic effects in Photoshop and don’t like the absence of “happy accidents” when working on a digital file, I prefer to print the images and then physically modifying them. So far I’ve explored crumpling prints, poking holes in them, submerging them in water, and lighting them from below before re-shooting them.

I’ve found that by using a cheap inkjet printer and printing onto office paper I get the best results since the ink will easily begin to streak, wrinkles show up much easier, and you can see the fibers of the paper when backlighting them. The really cool element that is intrinsic in this way of working is that you can force perspective when re-shooting the prints. For example, I took an image of a tree at night and I poked a bunch of holes in the sky portion of the image, then placed the prints on an LED light. When I was ready to shoot the print I used a 180mm macro lens, which creates a shallow depth of field, and I shot the print at an angle which made the stars and sky fall dramatically out of focus. I love the surreal possibilities of this and will definitely be exploring it more.