"Consumption" by Marius Ladner is an exaggerated examination of today's consumer culture

Marius Ladner is a Swiss based photographer. Recently he completed his first project, a zine shot on a Yashica FX3 with Kodak TMAX 400 (expired in 1993) which addresses the culture of consumption. You can see the whole project/zine in digital form at https://mariusladner.com/consumption, but let's help keep print alive and get yourself a copy if you can!

You can see more of Marius' work on instagram at @marius_ladner

ALTER/ANALOG:  What got you interested in the idea of consumption?

ML: The whole idea started for me talking to my brother about the so called “hypebeast” movement and the disconnect of the purpose of clothing and the value companies and people give simple clothing items. From there on we had a few images in mind which we could take. We asked our self what is the underline of those images and we figured it’s the culture of consumption in today’s youth. But I didn’t want to stop by portraying the “hypebeast” youth culture and that’s when we worked on images about bigger problems of today’s culture of consumption.

ALTER/ANALOG:  How did expired film play a role in this project?

ML: I love the process of film photography. The fact that I can control every aspect of the image with my fully manual Yashica FX3 and it doesn’t stop there because I develop and scan the film myself. I chose the filmstock with the project in mind. I picked a Kodak TMAX 400 which expired in 1993. Through the black and white film I wanted to offer a more distant and detached perspective of the situation, which we deliberately overdrawn in the staging. Furthermore, the use of an expired film was very appropriate for such a project, as we criticize the wastage of consumer goods and used a film which other people would throw away because it’s expired.

ALTER/ANALOG:  What challenges did you face producing a zine?

ML: The first problem was shooting a film that expired over 20 years ago. The frames of the last images on the roll overlapped at some point and resulted in double exposures. The development of the film was difficult as well because the film shrinks with the ageing process and it not easy to remove the film from the canister to roll into the development-tank. Going on from there I had to ask myself where to print the zine. Because I don’t have a large audience I made the whole project for myself anyway and I wanted only one copy. With my local print shops that wasn’t an option because the minimum amount I had to buy was to high. At that point I started looking for on demand online print shops and decided on blurb. That way I can print a single copy for myself and give two copies to the two guys I photographed for the zine. If the zine should get some traction I am still able to sell printed copies without a delay. Because I never planned to make money with this zine, the option to sell the zine via blurb only for production costs was great as well.

ALTER/ANALOG:  What project are you working on next?

ML: At the moment I work on a project documenting the moment in every young adults life where they are grown up and are ready to move out of their room within the house/apartment of their parents. It's going to take me awhile because I want to photograph as many people around the age of 18-21 as possible. Therefore I'm asking every person I took a picture of if they know someone who could fit in this project. So my list of photographs I want to take gets longer and longer with time.