Water Mining (Eaton Canyon) 2021

Directed by Kate Lain

Water Mining (Eaton Canyon) is a nature film made with a stream, rather than about it. Its images come from a combination of cyanotype, a blue-and-white photographic process dating back to the 1840s, and actual plant material adhered to physical film. I hand-coated clear 16mm leader with cyanotype chemicals, then used sunlight to make photogram-style, cameraless exposures of plant matter I had gathered in and around the stream in Eaton Canyon. Cyanotypes are processed using water, and for this film, I used stream water that I had also collected from the canyon. I approached the film as though the stream, what was in it, its surroundings, the film, the chemicals, and I were all extensions of one another.