Polaroids¶
Basic Info¶
- Year: 2012-2018
- Materials: Impossible Project/Polaroid Original Film
- Dimensions: individual images are 3.5” x 4.25”
Description¶
In mid 2012, I became fascinated with the Polaroid SX-70. The camera is a folding SLR, and when released in 1972, it was Polaroid’s first integral film camera. My first exposure to the SX-70 was this video, in which it just seems so marvelous.
Then, there is the story of Jamie Livingston. His photo a day project brought him from 1979 to 1997, with around 6,700 photographs. So, some combination of my interest in Jamie’s story, and the technology of the camera, led me to purchase my own.
Related Projects¶
The polaroids often find their way into other works, or form the basis of entirely new projects.
Polaroid Timelapse Videos¶
Embedded below is an example from a set of Polaroid timelapse development videos. This project was focused on observing the film’s chemical conversion, and rendering that as a digital process. The resulting videos are just slow enough to lose track of what exactly is shifting in between each individual frame. In the case of images which were over-exposed, the development process gradually gains then loses detail before developing to completion.
NOPE Images¶
In a rare experiment with negation (instead of affirmation), the NOPE images are a set of pictures that have been taken with a thin plastic slide hidden inside the camera. The plastic slide has a single word printed on it, which is imprinted onto an over-exposed image as it is being taken.
Further Reading¶
- Blog posts: My SX-70, Polaroid Timelapses
- Sample High resolution images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sD1JBpgzKbwqGrRxxyVnWVnb-WmjVYnB