Flooding the Potomac is a zine collection of one year of experimental photography taken on a 00’s era digicam. It was first published in February of 2023, with a deluxe limited edition 2nd run of zines printed most recently in April, 2024.
I put this together because often in my process I’ve found that the best mediums for creation are those with severe limitations. By using a camera whose wings have been so clipped it allows for more experimental work.
In 2019, I used a Concord point-and-shoot digicam to keep a litigious record of my day-to-day life, taking 200+ shots in a diary format. The portable nature of the camera made it very easy to take nearly everywhere, so I was able to bring it along to house concerts, skateparks, restaurants, and campus. The heavy duty on-camera flash also made it particularly interesting stylistically.
Much of the work in this zine explores similar themes to the artwork I’ve previously created, such as the Prelinger Collages (2018-2022), Short Films: Compilation(2020), or My Way (2024). A sense of foreboding nostalgia, and an exploration of an unnatural, highly symbolic space. Particularly in growing up in a relatively rural area, the forest was a huge part of my life. That’s why it features so heavily in the zine – but in the sense of humanity’s interaction with the forest. The rusty places where the edges of urban and suburban life rub up against the Woods. In this zine the low-fidelity blurred images allow for a sense of found-footage horror, in the familiar medium of the point-and-shoot digicam.
DAEGAN LUNSFORD 