Clara Rodriguez: Spiritual Exploration Through Experimental Film Photography

Clara Rodriguez, better known in the community as Haluro de Clara — a clever nod to the silver halides central to analogue film chemistry—is no stranger to the experimental photography community and especially not to us at Lomography. With lots of experience in developing film in every known and unknown way, Clara first caught our attention years ago with her captivating film soup creations.

Last year Clara’s travels brought her to Europe for the Experimental Photo Festival in Barcelona, presenting the perfect opportunity for us to reconnect. From her latest projects to her creative philosophy, there’s so much to uncover about her evolving artistic journey. And as a special treat, Clara also shares some beautiful work shot exclusively for us on a roll of LomoChrome Purple - a testament to her vibrant, experimental spirit.

Hi Clara, welcome back to Lomography Magazine! You took part in the Experimental Photo Festival. Can you share some of your experiences from it?

The festival is all about sharing the passion of experimental photography. You have conferences, speeches, workshops and also exhibitions. I took part as an artist, with my photography. I also did a workshop and exhibited a portion of a project called "Elements" in which I manipulated negatives with the four natural elements - I showed ‘fire’.

What was your workshop about?

I taught an advanced workshop called Experimental Alchemy. It was about different interventions on film: film soup, burning negatives, collaging them, painting, boiling.

The festival not only features exhibitions of current artists, but also has a focus on the history of photography, the early days of Talbot and Daguerre for example. What are your thoughts on the importance of knowing about photographic history?

Pablo, one of the directors of the festival, is really an advocate for this context to photography. He likes to display research on how experimental photography started. While history books might often state that experimental photography has its roots in recent years, he on the other hand emphasizes that experimentation is really how photography itself was discovered in the first place.

How’s the analogue photography scene in Buenos Aires?

Oh, it’s really cool! Experimental photography there is experiencing sort of a hype right now! Of course next to this experimental group of people, there is also the, let’s say more ‘conservative’ side of it, too.

You got first introduced to the scene through a film developing workshop in Buenos Aires. How has your practice evolved since then?

Exactly, it was one of those moments that seemed like it just had to happen, since I slipped into it unexpectedly. I think when these small things in life unfold themselves and evolve into something much bigger, there is a purpose behind this. This is part of my spiritual belief.

So with you doing your own workshops now, it seems like your life guided you again, this time to sort of ‘fill the gap’ with your own approach, right?

Yeah it’s really crazy. I started doing workshops I believe in 2021. Since the first one I did, they evolved a lot and it was only then, when I realized that I’m teaching a lot of stuff that I learned from my teacher. She was really starting a spark there!

What’s your experience with Lomography films? What do you like about them?

Most of my stuff is shot on Lomography Color Negative film. I shoot mostly color and these films are a good baseline for diving into film soup and my experiments. With Lomography Color Negative 100, I love to push it to ISO 400!

The color palette in your photography is characterized by a lot of pinkish and purple tones. Isn’t this the perfect fit for LomoChrome Purple ?

That’s an interesting perspective, since I don’t plan on my photos being dominant in certain colors - it actually is a phenomenon coming from the film soups I do. Certain liquids and chemicals I tend to use to manipulate my rolls, lead to this pink touch - it’s probably something about the liquids acidity. With souping LomoChrome Purple on the other hand - the results mostly lean into turquoise colors - so I sort of created my own LomoChrome Turquoise.

Speaking of creating your own film, you have in fact created your own film stock called ‘Aurora’. What is it all about?

I came across so many people that were afraid of doing film soup, because you can ruin your film. So I wanted to have something prepared for people to shoot, without having to go through the hassle of coming up with a recipe that works for them. So that's for one part, and the other side is like, it aims for people to shoot and then reveal what's there, that they cannot see with their eyes. This is why I created this pre-souped film.

What's your photographic process, in terms of finding topics and realizing your projects?

Especially now that I’m travelling, I wander around with open eyes and capture what I’m attracted to, mostly nature, but there are also elements of street photography and day-to-day life in my work.

My process starts with taking the pictures of course, then manipulating them, and afterwards I search for the line that connects them all. The manipulation part can be a palette of different techniques, from film soup (my favorite technique), over boiling negatives, to collage. From there on, these ideas evolve into projects that come to my head - this really is the last step of the process.

I stumbled upon something written on your website: ‘[...] she shifts herself from an observing photographer to an active participant of the process, not just leading to a different look on the final image, but also a deepened experience, a spiritual exploration.’ It seems to me that you take a very active role in the process of taking and developing your photos.

Yes, definitely. That’s why I began with developing on my own, because if I send it to a lab, it loses my energy, the part of doing it with my own hands, revealing the pictures. There are practical reasons, too, of course - developing films at commercial labs has gotten very expensive - and almost none of them develops film soups - and that’s a ‘no’ for me.

Do you conceive your approach as a counter movement to today's pace of life?

It differs from what a lot of people are used to seeing in photography, but again, I think there is a collective pursuit towards experimentation in the community. What I want to achieve with this, is to move away from that idea of a perfect image, composition wise, color wise and in every other aspect, too. It starts with a picture, but from there it can go anywhere!

What is it then, that you want to capture with your pictures?

I try to express the spiritual side of our nature, because I feel like we are all creative beings. There's a certain drop of divinity inside of everyone, so I tried to capture that. To give you a perspective: I have encountered many people on this topic, and some of them - let’s say they work in finance - they say things like ‘I'm not creative’ or ‘photography is not for me’ and they think art in general is not something they can participate in. In reality, even if you are doing something that is related to another field, that seems far away from art, you can be creative in a lot of ways!

To take this further, I not only want to capture what we can physically see, but also make visible what we can’t see.

What do you mean by that?

I think there's a lot of ‘in between’, which we are not able to see. I’m convinced that some of this is being revealed in the interventions I do to films. The stains from film souping, the colors, all of that is fitting in the final picture, like it was preplanned. I know in which direction the manipulations can go of course, but there would be no way to predict it certainly! I like to think of it as ‘reality’ showing itself through the pictures.

Often when people look at a picture, they can’t tell what exactly is making them feel a certain way - if it's this part or corner of the picture or another one. Still, these emotions, even unconscious feelings, often stick to you. I like to think about how this encounter may be showing itself in a week, a month, maybe years later in something the viewer does or creates on their own.

Are there any projects you're working on right now?

I have a lot of ongoing projects, with the festival ahead, I focused strongly on the workshop and exhibition though. I like the flow of things.

This project I exhibited in Barcelona is about letting the elements intervene in the photos - fire, water, air and earth! I burn negatives to involve fire and I’m going to bury film in earth to get different effects, as for most of my work - film souping also is the base here!

Thank you very much to Clara for sharing her insights and incredible photography with us! To keep up with all her latest projects follow her on Instagram and website.

written by jakobeak on 2025-03-19 #gear #culture #people #experimental #film-soup #lomochrome-purple Share Article