A Hasselblad 500C/M with the film-holder deattached. In front are four square cardboard pieces with different shapes cutout in them, showing how they fit inside the camera masking the film during photographing. — Visual Description: A Hasselblad 500C/M with the film-holder deattached. In front are four square cardboard pieces with different shapes cutout in them, and behind them is a stack of more cardboard cutouts. Dashed lines show how the cardboard cutout fits on the back of the camera body and another set of dashed lines shows how the film-holder fits over the cutouts. This leaves the cardboard cutout right in front of the film during the exposure, masking out the film and allowing only the cutout shape to be exposed.

Process:

CONSTELLATIONS

120mm MULTIPLE EXPOSURE

Working with my Hasselblad 500C/M I noticed a tiny sliver of space inside the camera, between the back of the camera body and the detachable film case. So I started to make little cardboard squares that had different shapes cut out from them, a circle, a square, a trapezoid, and so on. I could put these cardboard cutouts into that space and mask parts of the film. This technique allowed me to isolate and reframe fragments of the city, constructing layered urban constellations through multiple exposures.

Since these masks remain invisible through the viewfinder, the process requires an embodied act of spatial projection—an internal navigation of the unseen. I must “enter” the camera, constructing the image mentally before it materializes on film. This interplay between camera, city, and perception becomes an architectural dialogue, one that is both structured and indeterminate.

I am using the example of one of my constellation photos, but the process is similar only the subject is Street Constellationsdifferent for Street Constellations, Sky Constellations, and Untitle Experiments Layering Space Through Cutouts.