A celebration of analogue photography

A collaborative art project between Studio Kleiner and myself, creating experimental numbers based on the mechanical parts of a Rolleiflex camera.

For a long time a Rolleiflex was photographer Carl Kleiner's constant companion, now he uses digital cameras. But the Rolleiflex has a special place in his heart. When Kleiner was working on his analogue project 'Diary images' he wanted custom numerals to label the years the photographs were taken, and that sparked the idea of the Rolleiflex numbers.

The numbers are a puzzle. The idea was to metaphorically dissect a Rolleiflex camera and use the different parts to form the shapes. The numbers would be a celebration of analogue photography using the skeleton of the machine as the material to mould the forms. The design deconstructs the camera into pieces and puts them back together to become something different.

When seeing the vectorised shapes Evelina Kleiner was inspired to translate the numbers into typographic sculptures, made from different materials, using a laser cutter. The sculptures were then photographed by Studio Kleiner in ways relevant to analogue photography for an art series.