I’ve been slinking around the world with a Polaroid camera since spring of this year. I’ve always loved the look of Polaroid images and was unprepared for how magical it feels to use an actual Polaroid camera. Seriously. It feels like petting a star dusted magenta unicorn mane or feeding turquoise hummingbirds tiny sugar cubes with the tip of my pinky finger.
MAGIC!
What I really love about shooting with Polaroid is how sacred the act of making a photograph becomes. Since Polaroid film is rather obsolete, you have to hunt for packages of the stuff. It costs me about two dollars to take a photo, which doesn’t sound like much but believe me, it adds up quickly. I have spent the past four years taking photographs with digital cameras. With one such camera I can take three hundred photographs without even thinking. I just hold the button down and let the machine whir like a little windmill on the Snake River plain. With a Polaroid camera, each image I make is a careful and conscious act. I sometimes stand for minutes on end with the camera to my face, just looking at the various options for angles and light directions before I take a photo….if I take one at all. Using a Polaroid camera has brought intention back to my photographic life. I love it!
Anyway, the photo I have attached to this post is a shot I took a few weeks ago of Farley and I standing toe to toe in the living room. I love it. It perfectly sums up what exactly that dog means to me and probably what I mean to him as well. And that’s a bit of magic too, come to think of it.
Have a delightful evening!
x
sigh. i love you the most.
i get this – the dog part. I don’t have a polariod but I certainly remember the waiting for the photo to appear. it is magic. all of it.
LOVELY and so funny, too, because I am staring at a wee little stack of my own instant images right this moment deciding how best to present them to the world… kindreds.
Awww! Melty heart 🙂 Photos are magical. You should learn dark room techniques!
soooooo good!
love and light
I believe you are a bit O’ Magic!!! “Star dusted magenta unicorn mane”
Really?? Where do you get this stuff???? I like the way you are thinking!!!
Just sayin! I am not a photographer at all, but live vicariously thru you
and your amazing photo’s…… Thank you for this! And your crazy cool words…
Love! YOU have a delightful evening!!! <3
I tried to do the heart thingy, it didn’t work! so here ya go “heart”!
i love the deliberateness you describe using your Polaroid
it’s amazing how effortless the digital age has made many things where we don’t have to be completely conscious or decided.
oh, how i love steady understanding captured when feet and paw meet 🙂
beautiful!
xx
ugh I want a Polaroid camera so bad!
LOVE Polaroids – I agree with them being magical!
LOVE Dogs! – and yours are awesome! 🙂
also loving all the scenery of where you live, almost makes me want to move there.
perfect dog/human summation: magic. yes.
i suppose it’s a generational indicator that i remember the entire jingle for the polaroid swinger camera by heart and will on occasion sing it. out loud. in the company of others. i do believe, however, that there is a very deep human need to go “vintage” at times, especially times when progress is moving along at warp speed and nothing seems altogether real or tangible. there is a certain comfort as well as aesthetic appeal found in things not deemed technologically perfect. yes to that, too.
xoxo
Oh yes, old cameras. I have a polaroid hanging around at home, but no film for it, sadly.
What I do have, though, is some old and very old film cameras – one from the 1970s, courtesy of Grandad, which I adore: http://greeneyedspirit.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/treasure-every-moment/ – don’t you just love the film grain and the whole feel of film?
The very old camera is a pre-WW2 Voigtländer Bergheil: http://greeneyedspirit.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/voigtlander-goes-coole-park/ – yes, it works, yes, I shoot with it. With 120 mm film being not cheap to buy or develop, and only 8 shots per roll of film, it slows you down a lot from shooting digital. But oh boy do I love it.
Warmest wishes from Ireland 🙂
there is nothing better than polaroid. deliberation, decision, anticipation, magic. I’m thinking you probably already know about the impossible project film? maybe that’s what you are using.
and the image of feeding turquoise hummingbirds tiny sugar cubes made me snort a little bit into my after dark chocolate fro-yo a little. what a perfect image!