Environmental portrait project | Polaroid, instant photography
I'm working on a new exploratory project that I am beyond excited to share!
I have had a life long, obsession with polaroid or instant photograph cameras. As a little girl I went through a few different ones, and while the photos live on, I no longer have any of the cameras - I'm sure they were either broken and tossed out, donated, live at the bottom of some hidden gem of a box in my basement, or were given away as their time faded in popularity. HOWEVER, I've continued to adore them through adulthood and have managed to get my hands on a couple over time.
These days the polaroids that I collect or print are of very meaningful images. Like the flowers above - that bouquet of flowers was gifted by one of my closest friends when we lost our sweet girl, Mabel last year. This gesture meant so much to me, now that the flowers are long gone I have this image of them - and when I look back on this photograph I'm flooded with the feeling of love and support.
Polaroids are a powerful way to document both creatively and expressively.
SO, back to the project -
I'm going to be taking to the streets of Ithaca & beyond collecting environmental portraits of people. I'm not sure of the exact subject matter just yet, but I'm thinking that I'll be drawn into people when the moment is right.
I'll ask them if I may, collect their portrait for a project I'm working on, give them a prompt, or possibly mention what about them made me want to take their photograph. Fbjreagbregbrehk < that's the beautiful noise of my polaroid being exposed and spit out! Then wirelessly spit them a duplicate of their portrait, and give as a thanks!
My goal is to collect images with multiple cameras, and with different types of film. Some black and white, monochrome, color - and the images will be an assortment of sizes as I'll be using different cameras throughout my process. I plan to put them together in some sort of manner be it a book or web-display, and share my journey, and what I learn along the way. I will also be attempting to scan in the polaroid images and make edits/ bump up the resolution so that I can make larger format prints!
So there you have it, my Polaroid the people project!
My gear list:
- Polaroid SX-70 aka, a Land Camera - super fun, funky, and a classic in the polaroid line up.
- Hasselblad 500 c/m with Polaroid back-attachment! - I can't even get started on this, I'm in love.
- 600-Type, another more recent classic in the polaroid line up.
- Fuji Instax wireless printer
- Various films from the Impossible Project - to fit the Hasselblad, the landcamera, and the 600
- Instax instant photo film (for my printer)
wants If you have access to, or own any of these lovely devices I would be SO grateful for the chance to borrow, *and safely return* them for this project!
- Fuji Instax mini 90 NEO CLASSIC (At some point I will need to buy this guy for myself.)
- Fuji Instax mini 70
- Fuji Instax WIDE 300
- Any 600-type series
- Any instant camera! (Should've started with this one.)
Alright, ciao for now, xx