Photography: William Miller repurposes discarded negatives to create jewel-like images

Recycling, upcycling and repurposing is all the rage these days and while not everyone needs an armchair made out of a bathtub, the concept of subverting an object’s original purpose is an interesting one. Take William Miller’s latest project, Surface Tension, he’s used discarded negatives from old photography projects and turned them into sculptural objects. By crushing, folding and slicing the negatives and using a flatbed scanner to photograph them, a stunning, abstract refraction is created.

We’ve been big fans of William’s for a couple of years now, featuring his Ruined Polaroids project back in 2012, which also converted discarded items into beautiful works of art. This new series is just as mesmerising with beautiful reddish brown tones, clashing wonderfully with electric blue and cerulean pigments.

I love how they look like close-ups of amazingly weird jewels, and how it’s only when we’re given an aerial of one of the negatives that it’s clear how this effect has been achieved. It’s fascinating to see someone use a material in an inventive way, playing with techniques and processes to create something far more beautiful than perhaps it could have been.