Photographic negatives. They look like strange poltergeists, or an oddworld version of our earth. But as snap-happy Gizmodo readers have proved, they’re not just strange; negatives can also be beautiful…
[The following photographic negatives and descriptions were supplied by Gizmodo readers in the US.]
“Walking in Toronto on a break from a shoot, I had my trusty side arm with me, a Panasonic GM1, set at f9 1/400 200 iso. The clouds were murky and dark but just as a I got to this office building waiting for the light to change, some clouds parted and let through the bright blue sky hiding above. It made for a perfect contrast between bright and dark and a nice blue gradient (which of course turns orange). The fun part was seeing the office lights change to black, I am reminded of a binary code or a DNA test strip of some sort. Fun!”
“My wife has been gardening and these tiny flowers pop up recently. I love the colours they bring out so i figured if the real colours are so nice the negative well be just as good. Nikon D610, 50mm f/1.4, ISO 250, 1/800 sec.”
[No description given.]
“The base image is of a cup of soup (beef flavour). I like the way the noodles jiggle on the spoon. The image was captured with a Nokia 635. The noodles are given an eery glow with the negative process as if they are being transilluminated from below.
The image was then processed in GIMP 2.8.14 to convert it to a negative. The images were then resized in Microsoft Paint as I find it easier to use for the simple stuff.”
“I spent a couple of months doing weight training and eating high calories. This week, I’m shocking my body with an extremely low carbohydrate intake/high protein and increased cardio to trim down some of the unwanted gain that was inevitable. I love carbs… LOVE carbs. Day two of “fuck carbos” week was yesterday and it was cake day at work. Stayed strong, but snapped a pic of the cake (what was left, anyway). I love cake. iPhone 6 Plus, Negative Me app, Instagram app, Juno filter.”
“This is the DSL equipment at my work. I took a negative of this particular panel at my work because of the varying colours.”
“Not the conventional “negative” But it is a negative! Yesterday my boss brought in a colouring book from the 80’s for a collection box at work. I flipped through it and at the end found this! I had to take a photo of it! It looks like the last page was Darth and it was coloured on, left in the book for a year, then torn out, sat for 30 years, and created this negative. Hope it counts!”
“Thomas Circle NW, on an inverted sort of day. iPhone 6, 4.15mm, f/2.2.”
“I took the original picture while I was walking down Third Avenue in NYC. The original picture was of a reddish brown building on a semi-cloudy day. A part of the blue sky was reflected down the middle of the building. I took this picture with my Canon 5dMark III using my 24-105mm L f4 lens. It was shot at f/5.6. 1/1000 sec at 200 ISO. The focal length was 24mm. I used aperture priority and worked the original RAW shot in Lightroom 6. I used GIMP to convert it from the “normal” shot to the Negative one. No other enhancements were done after the GIMP conversion.”
“I made a cup of Americano for myself, and it looked so good, I had to take a picture :). I then used the built-in Android photo editor to adjust exposure, contrast, and finally invert and get the negative effect. The white cup became a black magnifying glass, and the coffee bubbles reminded me of continents of a planet, or even stars of a galaxy … Equipment: Moto X”
“For this challenge, I decided to try a still life of different apples. These are a red delicious, a granny smith, and a jazz apple. After inverting the image, it looked like the fruit was glowing. This was taken with a Pentax K-5 IIs, which I had rented for the week. The lens is a 50-135 mm. A Yongnuo flash was used off camera for the light.”
“I was just standing outside my house, and saw the Kingfisher after very long time and thought of the Negative shooting challenge of this week and just clicked it. I used Nikon D7100 with 18-200mm lens. ISO 320 f/22 1/20s”
“I shot this with my Samsung Galaxy S5 and then used the Negative Photo Effect. I re-sized in Photoshop Elements. It is a puzzle me and my wife had been working on of our cats and I thought the negative might show the puzzle piece lines more prominently, which it kind of did. What I didn’t expect was the great sky blues the table would create.”
“During a visit to an I*** store I found this collection of markers, crayons, etc. All in bright intense colours. In negative they change to these beautiful pastels.”
“I was taking some pictures for a monthly newsletter I design for a local country club. This was a cool old-style clock on their golf course. Canon Rebel T2i, f/10, 1/200 sec, ISO 400”
“Otherworldly wildflowers in the Fair Hill Natural Resource Area, Maryland. Canon G7x, f/1.8, 1/2000 second exposure, ISO-125, 9mm focal length.”
“I chose to take a photo go my recently developed medium format negatives and then invert the picture to negative so the photo would look close to normal colour. It’s not going to be exact colour but it came out cool! Equipment used was my Canon 6D and Sigma 24-70.”
“This is a lone willow tree under a starry night, shot with a Nikon D750 and a 30 second exposure. I’ve been trying to work this tree, planted by my grandmother, into a composition for a while now. I actually used the lights from the house to create the stark shadows on the ground.”
“My daughter went to prom Saturday. This blue-skin look would have been a hit! Canon 5D Mk II. 85mm lens at f/1.2, 1/160s, ISO 100.”
“I was wandering the DC tidal basin and came across the FDR Memorial – a little travelled open air piece that is just brilliant. At first I was drawn to literal negative casts of sculpture, as I thought I might be clever for this contest.
“Instead, I was drawn to the sculpture of the Depression Era bread line. By getting in tight and opening the aperture way up, the sculpture was the whole world – no tidal basin greenery. This was shot at f/1.8 with a shutter speed of 1/2500 at 35mm. I used Lightroom to create the negative.”
“So I decided to take a stroll Sunday evening by the East River and found the perfect shot for my submission for this week’s shooting challenge.
“I shot these on a Canon Rebel T1i at a focal length of 35 mm at F 4.6 just as the sun was setting behind the skyline and creating perfect back lighting for the buildings. After processing the picture in photoshop and applying the negative effect the skyline looks like some kind of city of ice with a post apocalyptic sky and a frozen East River in front. White Walkers anyone?”
“After looking around Seattle for a cool shot, I kept going back to the thought of eyes as a negative. I tried to capture my son’s baby blues, but the shot ended up looking better as a negative after converting to black and white. Shot with a NIkon D610.”
“Saturday at Denver International Airport’s new hotel and transit expansion opening in part this fall. Looking from the eventual lobby of the hotel, across the open terrace to the south of the DIA Terminal. As a night mode for iOS’ overly bright white interface I keep ‘invert colours’ as an accessibility shortcut of triple click home button. Used this to determine my shot(s) as a ‘negative’ live viewfinder. Straightened, and cropped in Affinity Photo. Shot on iPhone 6 Plus, back camera, stock camera app.”
“This scene is my backyard as the sun is rising. The three trees on the left are producing white flowers, the grass is a bright green, and the fence along the back is a rusty red. I shot this on a Canon T3i, 24-105mm lens @ 24mm focal length, f/5, 1/125s, ISO 800, and the “Landscape” picture style. The only adjustment was an inversion of the photo in PS for the “negative”.”
“Love the premise of this contest, so I had to throw my hat into my first submission. I am using a Nikon D90 with a 50mm lens, using an f stop of 1.8. Camera was held via hand and the focal point was on the tasty sandwich itself.
“I find the world of negatives fascinating, because they produce the most unexpected results, even when you’re well aware of what the original looks like. Nothing says good morning like a hearty breakfast, but to invert the colours makes it seem like something out of Star Trek or breakfast under an electron microscope. If I were to title this shot, I would give it the name of Breakfast Plus.”
“This photo was taken as a landscape on the Gulf of Finland, in Kasmus, Estonia. I waited till the sunset was just right as to give the water and the sky the same tones. I used a 20mm lens, set on a tripod at 45 seconds.”