HAMMERMANIA™​​

Each cityscape is layered on film (in the shooting phase) with no digital manipulation.

​

Almost 20 years ago on my first trip to San Francisco, I ran out of film. I was miles from a strip mall or camera store and decided I would just wind back to the beginning and shoot over the whole roll again. Inspired by the images randomly created that day, my project was born: I would capture at least one city from each of the 50 States in the same way.

​

I use multiple exposure techniques to utilize iconic imagery in a less pristine way than our high-resolution world dictates. Any tourist in the world can stand in front of a monument and take the same stagnant image, I want to capture the event of experiencing.

 

I think of an entire roll of 36 exposures as my blank canvas. Free from the constraints of a single frame, I stop advance or rewind to layer as I curate the image. I hold loose filters and found objects over the lens to blur and overlap details of the life, heart and history of a city.  My goal is to take a flat photo and heighten the visual by adding discovery, subjective thought and personal experience to the palate. In this way I can infuse my fingerprint throughout while telling a story. 

 

I call this technique "long form multiple exposure".

 

While I interpret each city’s unique beat and rhythm, I incorporate an anthropological slant, adding close ups of artifacts over a sweeping vista eliciting a multi-dimensional experience. The viewer becomes the traveler, unraveling my journey and getting in-between the layers, which often reveal their secrets slowly over time.

​

I use a Canon AE-1 and 35 mm film. Many different lenses are interchanged (wide angle, 50mm and a several zoom lenses) in creating each image as there are anywhere from 2-10+ shots in one composition. I also consider the different color-casts or saturation values in choosing what film I shoot with to coincide with the particular sense of place.

​

Most of these images have been scanned from the negative; no additional editing has been done. No HDR software was used on these scans.

​

All images on this site are available for purchase. For inquires or commissioned work please contact Andrew Hammer at hammer.mania@gmail.com