Merging Consciousness: A Visual Love-Letter by Filmmaker · Lomography 11/15/20, 12(30 PM

LOMOGRAPHY › MAGAZINE › MERGING CONSCIOUSNESS: A VISUAL LOVE-LETTER BY FILMMAKER SCOTT CRARY WITH THE LC-A+

Merging Consciousness: A Visual Love-Letter by

Filmmaker Scott Crary with the LC-A+

Self-portrait of Scott Crary and his wife Paola with the LC-A+

Scott Crary is a New York-based film director, producer, and writer, best known for his
art punk documentary Kill Your Idols. Little did we know, when he came into our
Lomography NYC studio, that he is also a talented and passionate Lomographer. He has
been shooting and loving the LC-A+ for over two decades and told us about an idea for a
photo project he wanted to shoot exclusively for us—although the word project does not
do justice to what Scott and his wife Paola were up to.
Over the past couple of months, the two of them created a visual love-letter to the
medium of analog photography, the core aspects of what love is about and most
importantly to each other.

Scott Crary with the LC-A+

Scott, we are so thrilled you reached out to us about this project. We immediately fell
in love with the idea of it and are even more fascinated by the results. Please fill our

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Merging Consciousness: A Visual Love-Letter by Filmmaker · Lomography 11/15/20, 12(30 PM

readers in on the photo project you had in mind and how you came up with it.

The idea of the project was to have my camera with me whenever my wife was not,
treating it as a sort of vicarious gaze. It was a way to have her always with me, by using
the camera to see through her eyes and to let her see through mine. Love is at essence
ritual of tandem fate, of harmonized experience. It’s a holy thing, that merging of
consciousness. Our minds become authored by so many of the same events, colored by so
much mutual memory. And that revelation of love, of a marriage being a sensory unifying
is really what provoked the project. It became a way to prevent any potential gaps, to
allow each other to see whatever of the world being apart might blind us to. To go out
into the world and harvest its dream on her behalf, to prove its beauties... bringing my
beloved all the flowers I’d picked on my way back to her.
I shot over the past few months, primarily around New York City. My gear: Lomo LC-A+,
Splitzer, Colorsplash Flash, Lomography Color Negative 400 and 800, and a worthy
tracklist as well as good headphones. I like to wander around with the camera while
listening to music. It makes the images come more intuitively, to soundtrack sensation.
These were three songs pretty steadily on rotation throughout Bonnie Prince Billy "Wild
Is The Will”, Low “Quorum”, Vivaldi “Nisi Dominus - Cum Dederit”.

Scott Crary with the LC-A+

For what reasons do you prefer to shoot film in our digital age?

Film is alive in a way digital images can’t be. Particularly shooting with the LC-A+, it’s
more about creating some artifact of experience rather than controlling some definitive
and absolute image. It is about preserving the wild, the organic, the spontaneous...not
taming it. Analogue photography is about living. You spend more time with the moment
than the technology. Digital can be so clinical and sterile and self-homogenizing. But
analogue –– and Lomography in particular –– is all about chance, the unexpected, being
surprised. It demands a certain degree of surrender. The very same could be said of love.
Love is never more than a faith, and that’s why it’s so exciting. There’s that same sense of
suspense in shooting film... of not knowing precisely what you’ll get but trying for it
anyway. Which is what makes analogue photography so much more romantic than
digital. I could never have shot the project I did on digital. I needed each image to feel
like an artifact of some evaporating dream, half-remembered. I needed each to feel like it
was floating from my mind to hers.

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Merging Consciousness: A Visual Love-Letter by Filmmaker · Lomography 11/15/20, 12(30 PM

Scott Crary with the LC-A+

How did you get into photography in the first place and how long have you been
shooting with the LC-A+?

I’ve been shooting with the LC-A since the last century—way back in 1995. Back when
they were heftier and had that military stink to them. I don’t think I even knew what
photography was then, definitely not in any artistic sense. It wasn’t until I started making
films that I really started using it with any sort of aesthetic discipline. Then it became a
way to try out shot ideas, the photos I took serving as sort of stills from unmade films.

"Let your photography be a catalyst for experience, for a more vibrant living,
more alive living. Let your camera bait you deeper into the world."

Which one is your personal favorite photo of this series and why?
This one. If ever I needed proof I’m living in the gods’ favor, that face is it.

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Merging Consciousness: A Visual Love-Letter by Filmmaker · Lomography 11/15/20, 12(30 PM

Scott's favorite photo.

Knowing that you were shooting these photos for your wife instead of only for
yourself, did that influence the decision of what to photograph?

A photograph is an act of gratitude. So too is every gesture of love. Each is just a way of
saying thank you, be it for the moment in front of us we feel compelled to catch some
echo of by taking a picture of it, or be it for the person in front of us who’s convinced us to
an awe so overwhelming that it makes us want to stand in their life with them forever.
The project was really about combining both.

"A way of expressing how lucky we are to be standing in this endless,

inexhaustible spectacle of a world, and how lucky we are to be standing in it
together, sharing its show."

I suppose each ‘thank you’ exaggerated the other, and I did seek out moments that
particularly conveyed that.
Ironically, the photos that most convey that are the ones taken when we weren’t even far
from one another. The concept of the project morphed a bit midway through when I
realized how rarely my wife and I are actually apart. So apart came to mean both 2500
miles apart or 25 inches apart. In either case, it was the same strategy: I sought out the
most mystical event nearest me to aim my camera at. When we were in the same room
together, that very often meant her face. Which is what explains why there are so many
photos of her.

Scott Crary with the LC-A+

What advice do you have for other Lomographers?

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Merging Consciousness: A Visual Love-Letter by Filmmaker · Lomography 11/15/20, 12(30 PM

To quote L. Cohen, “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is
just the ash.” That holds true for any of the arts. To take extravagant photos, live
extravagantly. Let your photography be a catalyst for experience, for a more vibrant
living, more alive living. Let your camera bait you deeper into the world.
Also: Patience is the only honest muse. In writing, in painting, and especially in
photography. Don’t hunt for what to photograph. Let images find you. You wander your
desert until worthy mirage appears. Wait until that worthy shot comes. And then try to
capture it.

Scott Crary with the LC-A+

What other projects are you working on now?

A 15th Anniversary Expanded Edition of my first film, Kill Your Idols, will be released
later this year on 2xDVD.
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution was just released on DVD this month; I produced
that one and it stars folks like John Waters, Kathleen Hanna, Bruce LaBruce, Peaches,
and Genesis P-Orridge. A film I produced on the free jazz movement, Fire Music,
premiered at the New York Film Festival in October and is playing fests now. El Gran
Fellove, a documentary directed by Matt Dillon that I did some work on, is nearing
completion. And we just announced a new documentary on Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his
band, The Gun Club. That film is called Elvis From Hell and is slated to feature
interviews with Nick Cave, Jack White, Moby, Kid Congo Powers, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop,
and others. (It’s going to be a busy year!)

Stay tuned on Scott's upcoming projects and films and follow him Instagram or connect
on Facebook

WRITTEN BY BIRGITBUCHART ON 2019-02-13 #PEOPLE

TEASER PREVIEW

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