The Slidegun

The following is lifted directly from my flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncertainworld/2183447974/) where I described it at the beginning of 2008. 

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ok, so I finally got around to describing this thing a little better....

a. sb800, liberally wound with velcro of course

b. nikon diffuser cap with the front cut out of it, velcro on the sides to hold slide.

c. slide, printed on acetate on a desktop inkjet, with tabs of velcro on the edges.

d. funnyfoam snoot to hold the lens, with a strip of velcro along each edge

e. 50mm 1.8 lens (lightweight and wide aperture) with a strip of velcro wound around it which goes in the nose of the snoot, something like 50mm off the front of the slide. 

see it assembled at www.flickr.com/photos/uncertainworld/455957985/in/set-721...

check out photos tagged with slidegun in my stream to see what it does, then go make one. tag the results with slidegun, just so i get a thrill out of it!

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I'd actually been using a variation of the slidegun for nearly a year before that, but ideas gestate slowly in my mind sometimes. As far as I know nobody was doing this when I started. It's an idea that has huge possibilities for mixing scenes with branding, text, subversion, comedy, or simply creating an image in camera that's greater than the sum of it's parts. 

I've only had a few opportunities to use the slidegun commercially since then, the majority for jeanswear company Real Real Genuine. Richard at RRG was really supportive and enthusiastic, for which I'm very grateful. 

Quite a few people seem to have taken up the challenge and produced variations on the slidegun of their own. It's hugely gratifying to find someone in Japan or Australia or wherever has spent a day off building one of these and testing it, and posting the results on photosharing sites and blogs. If you're interested in trying it out, tag or name the results with "slidegun" just so everyone who has an interest can find them. 

Here are some of my results :