Recently, photographers on TikTok have been split on a certain artistic decision. The photographer @video.andres posted a video of him scratching up his camera lens with a rock. In the video, however, photographers are quick to note that it's an attachment lens and not the one on the camera, so it's easily replaceable and potentially a cheap one (though, that's debatable with TikTokers…)
The video had photographers in a love/hate position. When you watch it you instantly cringe and can't believe what he's doing, but then the amount of curiosity of how those photos would turn out start to overcome you.
Original Video
That curiosity got the best of TikToker and photographer @ilumitatiana. Though she admits when she first saw the video she cringed, but then she started to wonder… What if?… She remembered she had a beater lens laying around that she only spent like $40 on and decided to give the scratched lens look a try. The photos turned out beautiful, but was it really worth it?
She says in the comments of the video, “I did this for the sake of science—I have so many tutorials posted on better ways to achieve this. Also, this lens was like $40 and I didn’t use it.” However, even with that clarification, fellow photographers still gave her shit for destroying a piece of equipment for a “TikTok trend."
Destroyed Lens & Photo Results pt. 1
If you follow @ilumitatiana then you probably already can see she has a rebellious soul. Instead of being upset by the negative feedback she decided to replicate the procedure, but x 10. Instead of taking a lil ole rock and scratching up the lens, this time she took a hammer and straight up cracked the shit out of her lens.
Destroyed Lens & Photo Results pt. 2
Again, the photos came out stunning, but people are still wondering “at what cost??” Throughout the video she explains that the lens is a “beater lens,” it was cheap and she already was never using it, but even so she says she “does not recommend” anybody doing this to their lens. Though, it did look pretty fun hammering that thing…