What made you want to try half-frame, and what was your first half-frame camera?

I didn’t know what half-frame photography even was when I saw a listing for a half-frame camera last year. I say “listing” like I was perusing the classifieds in an alternative weekly and saw that someone was selling a vintage Olympus or something, but in actuality it was in the most crassly consumerist way possible; I was shopping for Amazon Prime Day deals and stumbled across the Kodak Ektar H35. I didn’t buy one, but I was intrigued enough by the idea to file it away for later. When a relative asked what I wanted for Christmas, that came to mind. 

I’ve been working in television as a photographer, editor, director and/or producer for close to thirty years, including a long stint with a PBS station, but I have no experience with film, minus some ill-fated experiments with a dodgy pawn-shop Pentax in my twenties. I thought a cheap half-frame camera might be a fun thing to play around with, and maybe I’d learn something.

I started out with it slowly, but by the early spring I was carrying it with me everywhere, and since then I’ve upgraded twice to more robust cameras. Another is on the way as I write this.

What is it you like most about Half-frame?

The thing I like the most about half-frame is the ability to tell a story or set a scene or make some sort of juxtaposition with the two-part frame. I guess that’s just the video editor in me, but I also see parallels to comic books, something I grew up on and still enjoy. That’s why I post mostly diptychs on my Instagram; I just see that as the inherent purpose of the format. If I wanted to do single images, I’d get a different camera.

But, to be up-front and honest, I absolutely mix-and-match half-frames during the edit process. Of course, the perfect case is when what I intended to be paired in the camera actually ends up together, but those exposure counters are far from exact. Again, I blame the video editor in me for that compulsion to tinker in post.

I’ve also taken to half-frame because I needed to find another hobby. I record a lot of music that I keep saying I want to put on Bandcamp but that I can’t stop tinkering with (please see previous paragraph). But, I’m losing my hearing; how much of it remains to be seen, but it will be enough to make messing with guitar pedals and synths not the best use of my time or money. I wanted something that would satisfy the creative urge and that I could still do when music becomes too frustrating for me to continue.

Favourite subject and/or Half-frame photo?

I’m so new to this, it’s hard for me to say what my favorite subject is; I’m still experimenting. I very recently just started messing around with street photography, which is exciting but also makes me extremely nervous. I miss having the zoom lens of a video camera that allows me to be more discreet (so that, let’s say, a woman eating Chinese food while dressed in a squirrel costume will not yell at me for taking her picture, which is something that actually happened).

But, I would say that what I am most frequently drawn to could be characterized as the mundane in the urban and suburban landscape. By default, that mostly ends up being around the Atlanta area where I live, but my favorite picture I’ve taken was from a trip to Cleveland, OH, over the summer. I remembered seeing one of Andreas Gursky’s massive prints of the Rhine in a gallery; he had taken the photo in such a way (and then digitally manipulated it) so as to render it almost featureless, making the river, land, and sky into just parallel strips of color. It made a big impression on me, because that was maybe 20 years ago and I had to Google the guy to even be able to name him here. But, I think that’s what I was going for with this picture; it was me just wondering what it would be like if I tried to do that with Lake Eerie and my dinky little Ektar H35N. I dig how the green light on the pole in the left image matches the green of the weeds on the right, and how the frame division becomes part of the visual geometry of the two halves.

Your top tip/s for shooting half frame photos?

I’m still figuring so much of this out that I feel like I should be asking for tips rather than offering them. But, I would say that when it comes to having an eye for what to shoot, be on the lookout for things that will pair up well with other subjects you’ve captured recently. Look for shapes or colors or themes that reflect something you’ve already shot. It doesn’t have to echo it; maybe it just rhymes, if that makes sense. It can harmonize or it can clash; either can feel purposeful to the viewer. Like I said: I’m not a purist. If shots match up better in the edit process than they did in the camera, then I’m happy to make the changes. For me, this medium is about the two-part image.