7 Digital Originals is a cooperation between Leica and globally selected handcraft artists who carefully transfer digital images taken with Leica T Cameras into individual analog originals. The project dissolves the boundaries between digital and analog and focuses on the value of traditional handcrafts. Every artisan will host an event where they will present their pieces. The artists and cities are as follows: Jennifer Trausch, New York City; Mark Arnon Rosen and Wendy Marvel, Los Angeles; Alfons Alt, Marseilles; Marin Novak, Vienna; Miun, Singapore; Stickyline, Hong Kong; Unused, Tokyo.
Furthermore, a Special Edition Leica T Camera System can purchased online. With this purchase, you receive a Handcraft Voucher of the artisan of your choice. This voucher enables you to upload your favorite moment and transform it into your one of a kind Digital Original.
Below is a look at the artists celebrated in the first two events. First up is an excerpt of an interview with Jennifer Trausch on her 8X10 Instant Exposures project. The New York City event  took place yesterday, September 24. This is followed by the event in Los Angeles taking place on Saturday, September 27 with Mark Arnon Rosen and Wendy Marvel. Below they describe their Mechanical Flipbook.

Jennifer Trausch’s 8X10 Exposures
Q: How old is your handcraft?
A: My handcraft utilizes instant materials first made by Polaroid, a company started by Edwin Land forty years before I was born, in 1937.The first instant films debuted in the late 1940’s with the first Land Camera Model 95. These films were Black and White, peel apart-type film. In 1963 the first instant color film was produced, also a peel apart material. In 1972 the sx-70 camera and the first integral, square format films went on the market. Large format films: 8×10, 20×24 and 40×80, my specialty, were all released in the late 1970’s, as was I! A few Instant Film Basics: Instant film is a multi-layered film sandwich that can be developed immediately after shooting, making the image viewable almost as soon as it is processed. Once an instant sheet of film has been exposed in a camera, it is processed through a set of rollers, spreading a layer of chemical reagent between the layers of film to activate the development process. The negative layer contains dyes [color film] or silvers [black-and-white film]. During development, the dyes/silvers move in layered & timed migrations up from the negative to a receiving layer which they bind to, thus magically creating the instant image. Peel apart film is a type of instant film, where the image-receiving layer is a white paper with a mordent layer that attracts the dyes/silvers to it. After a set development time, one must peel apart the negative from the positive layer to stop the processing and reveal the finished image. Intergal films are similar in concept to peel apart film, but much more complex and layered with the film developing, stopping and fixing itself after processing. There is no peeling apart or chemical waste as the image sandwich stays together permanently to dry. Integral films are also different in that their receiving layer is a shiny see-through sheet, so once the dyes or silvers migrate to it, the image is viewed through this transparent layer.

Q: How, when and where did your handcraft find you first?
A: My memory of Polaroid started in the early 1980’s, with my grandfather photographing our family and his friends on his Polaroid cameras. As a ten year old I easily comprehended his love for photographing women, who he photographed very simply in their everyday environments; his favorite waitress standing near his table, the pretty grocery store clerk at the counter, a neighbor in front of her house. His pride in the images was unmistakable when he would leaf through his stack of polaroid portraits with us. I even still have and use some of his cameras when I shoot, though I don’t often photograph my waitresses. My true connection with instant materials began at an internship with the 20×24 Polaroid Studio in NYC in 1998. The studio housed and rented out one of five 20×24 Cameras in the world, and it was here that large format cameras became my love, my language, and my way of seeing.
Read the rest of her interview here.

Mark Arnon Rosen and Wendy Marvel’s Mechanical Flipbook 
Q: How, when and where did your hand craft find you first?
Mark: Wendy and I were already making art together for almost two years and she was sharing some of her techniques, and I was gradually introducing ideas that I had been sketching out and playing with for years, yet not manifesting as art due to my professional and family life.
We had also started interacting with a hackerspace and it became clear to us that tech art was a natural progression for us. I had mentioned the notion of train station signs displaying graphics and Wendy started on her own path and she worked through her own Ideas. She waited patiently to see if I could really build a split flap display out of salvaged ink-jet printer parts. Since we had been challenging each other with our previous collaborations, our first goal after solving the technology was to somehow inject depth in a flipbook piece. It was a great feeling to discover that we could, and the craft really began to take hold of us after we saw how people responded to our first piece. We displayed the work at a charity art show/ auction and then took great pleasure watching people react to that piece. It sold quickly, and from then on, we were passionately injecting our ideas into these works with much more ease and fluency.

Q: Which part of the production process do you like best and why?
Wendy: Discovery! I love adventure and as a child wanted to be the female equivalent of Indiana Jones. Finding treasures in obscure places was a thrilling idea, but now as I travel less, those discoveries are happening in my own backyard. I don’t mean I’m digging up the grass and finding bodies, but Los Angeles has some amazing relics from the Aerospace and Entertainment industries. Mark and I love taking field trips to “the valley”. Every junkyard has 50‘s era equipment from the space race, and it’s where we found our airplane chassis boxes for the first mechanical flipbooks. Hollywood vintage shop are full of nostalgia with clothing and photos from the explosive growth of the motion picture industry. The very first flipbook cards I created was made by cutting up antique dresses and transferring my imagery onto the fabric. If I was going to appropriate people’s photos from a certain era, it only seemed right to use material from that age too.
 Read the rest of Mark and Wendy’s interview here.
Stay tuned as we share the rest of the artisans’ projects and events on the Leica Camera Blog.
– Leica Internet Team
Learn more about the events in New York City and Los Angeles. Get more details on the entire 7 Digital Originals project. The official hashtag for the collaboration is #7originals where you can follow along the celebration of handcraft art. Connect with Jennifer on her website and Facebook. Learn more about Mark and Wendy’s Mechanical Flipbook here.