Dudgrick Bevins' trip to Garden of the Gods resulted in heavenly photos
Dudgrick Bevins is a queer interdisciplinary artist living in New York. While he collects analog cameras, he works in many media. Most recently he is co-author of Georgia Dusk (2017, bd studios), a book of poetry and photography, and the poetry chapbook, “My Feeling are Imaginary People Who Fight for My Attention” (2018, The Poet’s Haven).
His most resent trip to Garden of the Gods in Colorado yielded surprising images full of color, with expired film to blame.
Dudgrick is on instagram as @cameracub86
ALTER/ANALOG: Can you tell us about the location of the shoot?
DB: Oh, it’s a lovely place in Colorado called Garden of the Gods. It’s full of these giant rock formations in deep reds. I’ve had the opportunity to go three times in my life and I remember what cameras I had with me each time. The first time I took my parent’s Fuji Big Viewfinder. It’s a great little pocket camera that I think deserves more of a following - gives every photo an expansive feel. The second time I had a Nikon N55 SLR; I used it to shoot my way across the United States in a month long road trip I took after graduating high school. My most recent trip I shot with a Lomo Diana F+, a Polaroid SX-70, and my Nikon N55. Each of these cameras saw the space in a different way, captured different colors, and put a twist on these beautiful rocks.
ALTER/ANALOG: How did you get these amazing colors?
DB: I wish I could take more credit or say I planned it out, but honestly I was amazed by the colors myself! Those colors made the photos my favorite from all the trips! I think the magic combo here was expired Fuji Astia (like ten years expired) plus the Diana camera. The roll was not very tight so there were light leaks along the edges; I remember trying to protect it by putting the roll back in it’s wrapper and taping it closed but the light that got in, I think, sparked some of the beautiful colors. I tried to replicate the results in a Holga with Astia of the same age and got a similar range of colors. I recently bought some 35mm Astia and can’t wait to try it.
ALTER/ANALOG: You said you collect analog cameras. Tell us a bit about your collection and why you collect them.
DB: So my love of analog runs deep. I remember as a small child I had an old broken camera in my toy chest. I distinctly remember carrying it with me on a couple car trips amazed by the inner workings; I’m pretty sure I had no idea it was meant for taking pictures but I loved it anyways. Later I was fascinated by the 110 cameras owned by my parents and aunt Wanda. Oh, Wanda’s was particularly cool because it took those rotating flash cubes - I still love those things! Anyways, my parents gave me a 110 Panasonic with a faux leather coating for my birthday in fourth grade. I took a lot of pictures of Jim Carrey on the tv screen, pictures of my friends half out of the frame, and pictures of the sky. Sadly, I’ve lost those pictures. Somewhere between those two cameras a love was born, a love for photography and for cameras. I eventually lost both of them and shot with disposable cameras in middle and high school. When I started asking my parents for a camera with more controls my dad gave me a Yashica J rangefinder, which I consider the first camera in my collection. I was sixteen then. For my eighteenth birthday my mother bought me the Nikon SLR I mentioned before. Then there was a flood of Lomo cameras (the Fisheye #2, the Pop9, the ActionSampler, and this really cool waterproof ActionSampler that they sold at the time). I also got into lenses with the SLR: a nice powerful zoom lens showed up thanks to my grandfather, then a fisheye, a Loreo 3D lens, and a Lensbaby. Anyways, one thing led to another and the cameras started breeding and making little baby cameras. Especially once I met another Lomographer in person - you can find him as Kylethefrench on the Lomo site - he started giving me extra or duplicate cameras from his much larger collection, then once friends and family found out that I loved all working cameras I couldn’t stop the flow. I have several folding Kodak cameras that are 100 years old and still work. I’ve got an awesome Pentax 110 tiny SLR, three different half frame cameras, toy cameras, instant cameras... like I said, any working camera gets my love, new or old. The newest edition is the Polaroid Originals OneStep 2, which I’m really enjoying.
ALTER/ANALOG: How does your poetry fit in with your photography?
DB: So I consider myself an interdisciplinary artist. As much as I love cameras and photography, I also love to paint and draw and write. I even used to knit. Something in me needs to make art. My hands have to be busy. In the past I felt like my interests were competing or that having so many interests kept me from developing any one skill set fully; however, what I have found is that my interests don’t have to compete when they can cooperate. I had been making poetry and photography zines for about a year when I met Luke Kurtis who is the owner of bd studios; his work centers around exploring a given theme through video, installation, photography, and poetry, with the work usually culminating in a book. He helped validate my work by showing me that others were interested books of poetry and photography. He and I co-created the work Georgia Dusk as a photographic and poetic exploration of our shared origin - North Georgia. Route 4, Box 358 is a forthcoming book of my poetry and photography exploring my hometown; like Georgia Dusk it will be released through bd studios.