Music videos can be a hive of experimental photography. Often a director will take an idea they’ve seen and put it into practise to produce surreal often breathtaking results using unorthodox camera techniques.

Richie Johnston is one such filmmaker that demonstrates how subverting a traditional photographic process called slit scan photography can be used to create mesmerising visuals for the musician’s audience.

The film was made to coincide with the Just Music’s Ambient Zone 2 compilation and clocks in at almost an hour in length.

Throughout the performance ballet dancer Rachel Bodger moves in a slow, rhythmic motion drawing on the obvious quirk of photography to elongate her body and draw patterns within the frame. The result is hard to turn away from. After a few minutes it’s clear that the dancer’s improvisation is geared towards the photography used rather than the music, although it compliments it perfectly.

We compiled a few screenshots that show the different patterns Bodger and Johnston’s collaboration achieved and at Phogotraphy we truly think they are marvellous!

If you’re interested in slit scan photography and want to try to do something similar in a project of your own, Richie Johnston put together a short ‘making of’ video to guide us through the thoughts and processes involved in the production. It’s well worth a look, maybe more so than even the highly polished film above.

Check it out:

Video and stills used with explicit permission of the Richie Johnston.