City of Chance 2021
Jordan Shum
When I was first learning how to use my first ever film camera I grew to love being surprised by which photos I was able to capture. I had bought my camera from a garage sale, it wasn’t new but still in good condition but sometimes when I would wind the film forward it would get stuck for a brief moment and I would be left wondering until I finished the role how many images I had actually managed to take. When the film was finally developed the images that I thought wouldn’t turn out ended up being the coolest ones because the images that jammed ended up fusing together. Needless to say, it was a happy accident.
Chance plays an exciting role in photography and art in general. You never know what you might see throughout the day that might spark an idea. Art is full of happy accidents. In “City of Chance” I wanted to revisit my happy accidents from when I was first starting out and push this idea of overlapping images. The images shown above are created from one role of film shot 3 times throughout the course of a few days and shot at various locations around Vancouver and it’s surrounding areas. Because I wanted chance to play a crucial part in this project I didn’t keep track of the images that I had shot previously when winding the film back and shooting it another time resulting in an organic blending and fusing of images.
