Todd Weaver's Experiment: 36 Frames of 36 Artists

Todd Weaver’s experimental portraits capture the players of Los Angeles’s creative community. Published in “36,” Weaver’s limited edition debut monograph, the portraits chronicle the musicians, choreographers, dancers and artists that collectively define contemporary West Coast creative culture.

The book’s title, “36,” refers first, to the number of frames Weaver captured of each subject, and secondly, to the number of subjects he captured. For Weaver, film is his original and true medium. In “36,” using his 50-year-old half-frame camera, “he embraces film’s limitations and allows for its imperfection,” explains the press release.

“The experiment kick-started when I purchased an Olympus Pen FT half-frame camera,” says Weaver, “I decided to add key limitations to the process of doing these portraits and see what resulted. Each shoot would only be 3 minutes long, each photograph taken every 5 seconds. I would photograph while I stood in one place and ticked off the time audibly, with the subject free to move in and out of frame as they desired.”

The project diverges from Weaver’s signature work, which is color photography most often taken in the field. The book, shot entirely in black and white, is the result of an experiment. “Yet one element of his work persists, the absence of studio lighting and the use of natural light.”

In “36” Weaver captures each artist – Devendra Banhart, Father John Misty, Rodrigo Amarante, Paz Lenchantin, Ryan Heffington, Jasmine Albuquerque, Mecca Andrews, Galen Pehrson, Ariana Papademetropoulos, among others – as they distinguish themselves through body and form.

“36”
Compiled and designed by Todd Weaver
Edition of 300, Available here
$75