THERESA DI MENNO

Theresa Di Menno is a self-proclaimed storyteller and a self-taught photojournalist. As a photojournalist she primarily uses black and white film to convey the truth and reality of her subjects. For this experimental suite of photo-based images she departs from truth and reality and lands over the rainbow in the land of color.

Having been asked to document the Art Car Ball – and duly inspired by the brighter, more vibrant new reality created by the art cars – she set her black and white film aside. Her subject demanded a new approach and she chose to experiment.

Using what is called “cross-processing” – that is a process color E6 film (slide film) as C41 film (regular negative film) – to develop the film, she creates images with colors that are transposed, displaced, and out of regular. To further enhance this new reality, she digitality alters the colors, boosting their values even higher, thus making them brighter, more vibrant, and unpredictable.

The resulting images, printed on watercolor paper, are strange and beautiful new surfaces. They are the extreme magnifications of nooks and crannies where objects hide, shifting in and out of focus and eventually disintegrating into color.