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Michael Behlen was sick of screens. Between staring at Microsoft Teams at the office, mindlessly scrolling through TikTok, and bingeing the newest Netflix show, the average American can spend more than 17 years of their lives gawking at pixels. This unsettling statistic—and what he’s observed firsthand—is what inspired the California-based photographer to found Analog Forever Magazine, a publication focused on film photography.
“I see a pendulum swing a lot in society,” Behlen says. “I have a young son, and I see that the younger generation is going back to records, vinyls, and Walkmans. That’s what I started noticing in photography as well.”
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From teenagers toting Polaroids to professionals embracing old-school photographic methods like tintypes and 35mm film, what’s old is new again. To highlight this affinity for all things throwback, Behlen teamed up with Analog Forever Magazine’s editor-in-chief, Michael Kirchoff, to bring Lost & Found to the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. The exhibit features the works of 35 local and national photographers, each of whom has their own artistic style centered around traditional film techniques.
“There’s a hands-on approach to analog photography,” Kirchoff says. “It allows you to connect to the medium and your own art. You can create something that’s tangible. Those processes allow you to create very unique works that you just simply cannot with digital cameras. That results in a lot of one-off pieces that you can’t recreate.”
While Behlen’s and Kirchoff’s passion for analog has been around for a while (they founded Analog Forever Magazine in 2018), the pair note that the sudden boom in art created by artificial intelligence has resulted in a newfound interest in analog photography.
“For some people, analog photography is kind of a knee-jerk reaction to AI,” Kirchoff says. “People don’t like change and will jump at the chance to do something in an old-school fashion.”
So, we asked Behlen and Kirchoff to share some of their favorite photographers that you can find at Lost & Found, which runs through November 23.
Michael Ash Smith
If you search the walls for work that feels moody and mysterious, you’ll likely land on photographs by Denver-based creative Michael Ash Smith. His images explore themes like depression, suicide, and anxiety through blurred figures in natural settings. Drawing from literature, history, and his own emotions, Smith takes haunting photos that spur people to introspection. “I think Michael Ash Smith has opinions that are actually opinions,” Behlen says. “He puts so much feeling into his work.”
Debbie Bentley
For the past several years, photographer Debbie Bentley has been using her camera to capture the Colorado River in an effort to bring attention to the river’s growing water crisis. The Denver-based artist uses both color and black-and-white film to capture Colorado’s rural lands in a documentary style. Catch more of Bentley’s work in her latest photo book, Dammed: Birth to Death of the Colorado River.
Mark Sink
Local photo geeks should recognize Mark Sink’s name. Not only is he the cofounder of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver but he also established the Month of Photography Denver, a biennial festival celebrating the artform. Known for his dreamy portraits, Sink has photographed some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Liza Minnelli and Victor Hugo. Currently, the acclaimed artist is honing his collodian craft—a film method that involves coating a plate of glass with chemicals, placing it in a camera, and exposing it to light. But not all of Sink’s art is so complex. In fact, much of his portfolio was accomplished with a $2 toy camera known as the Diana. Catch Sink’s ethereal original work, “Tulips and my hand on black glass,” at the show.
Wendy Constantine
Photogravure is a complex method of photo printing commonly done by fine art photographers, but Broomfield’s Wendy Constantine makes it look effortless. By covering a grained copper plate in gelatin and exposing it to a film positive, Constantine creates soft, velvety images rich in black and gray hues. Catch her characteristic style (dreamy scenes of nature and landscapes) in photos from her “Fairy Glen” series, where sheep graze on a misty hillside and a boat rests on a rocky shore.
Matthew Santomarco
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If there were an image that could single-handedly capture the essence of the American West, it would likely be one from Colorado’s own Matthew Santomarco. The film photographer’s striking landscapes are marked by vibrant color, proving that film photography doesn’t always have to be dull. He often plays with light in his work, letting the early morning rays illuminate the peaks of the San Juan Mountains like a spotlight or capturing that fleeting moment when fading daylight filters through a layer of fog in the Rockies.
5 More Cool Art Exhibits To Check Out:
- 5 Surprising Things We Learned From the Power of Poison Exhibit
- A New Denver Art Museum Exhibit Takes You Inside a Japanese American Incarceration Camp
- 5 Intriguing Unmentionables at Denver’s New Rumors of Bloomers Exhibit
- 5 Chairs You Have to Sit on at Denver Art Museum’s New Exhibit
- It’s a Yeti’s World at Shiki Dreams
Lost & Found runs from now through November 23 at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1200 Lincoln St., Suite 111). The exhibition is free to attend, and more information can be found on the center’s website.
