The good old days

Say hello to the very first instant camera, the Polaroid Model 95. Pretty basic huh, and when I say basic, I mean freak'n awesome, since when did basic begin to carry a negative connotation i wonder?

You see, when I say basic I mean load film, take aim and shoot.... no hi tech light levels, pixel definitions, "night time" "party" or "kids and pets" settings....just some of the features of my cannon G9 - I'm not saying I don't utilise these features, I often turn to them when shooting at night or taking photos of my niece and nephew on the run, but I also long for the days when things were simpler, when it was all about pointing and shooting and asking questions later... or not asking questions at all...just being happy with what you have.

There is a ad doing the rounds of prime time television at the moment, that says something along the lines of "do you remember the days when life was simple, before you had 9 different passwords and apple juice only had one ingredient". I don't know about you but i long for those days... granted i was about 8, but i long for them all the same!

Bare with me - i do indeed have a point... or at least i think i do....

Upon viewing the rather large stack of Polaroids on my desk awaiting to be scanned a colleague asked "why do you bother? - why not just shoot digital if you are going to take so many" Granted, she's right, I could take less Polaroids, spend more time composing others... treat them a little less like digital photos... but the idea of not taking them at all, well, I'd never entertain such a proposal - and why is that?

Because I good and proper love the simplicity of it all, nay the beauty in the simplicity in it all, and that right there is my point :)

Mike Brodie aka "The Polaroid kid"

Its not often you come across photos that totally blow you away, Ive been lucky enough to stumble across such photos twice in two days, yes yes lucky me, and by default lucky you! The first was The Polaroid House and the second is a series of photos called "Ride'n Dirty Face" by a "accidental documentary photographer" Mike Brodie.

What the kid did was photograph his friends, their homes and life styles, Sounds pretty run of the mill huh! Not so run of the mill is the fact that their homes are train carriages and box cars. Their lives aren't so much squeaky American clean as they are gritty and dirty. The resulting photos and exhibition will show you a cross section of middle America you never knew existed....

At first I thought they were shots from some crazy new tim burton movie, or from some far off war torn country, but no, this my friends is America.

You can check out the exhibition by clicking here, and purchase his prints by visiting the needles and pens store here... now if you'll excuse me one must go and pick ones jaw off the floor.

The Polaroid House - California

The Below is a project i think about all the time.... Its just one of those things that stay with you for life. A story you stumbled across when you were young, a image that stays with you forever.

The Polaroid house was a project with a difference.... So i thought Id re post this story for the new readers - its a special one.

No its not some fancy mansion owned by Sir Edward Land, its a dilapidated old house about 4 hours drive south of LA.... and unfortunately it is no longer.... but it was for a little while...and that's what I'm here to tell you about.

Photographer Kim stumbled across this abandoned old shack on a road trip one sunny afternoon "It really struck me" she says "and I knew I'd be back, it was so quaint, representing a bygone era" The physical decay of this house became the poster child for the decay and impending death of Polaroid Film when, on June 9, 2008 Kim decided to make it "The Polaroid House" What exactly does "The Polaroid House" entail? Essentially its just a space to display Polaroids, like art is displayed in a gallery.... but it became much more than that to Kim and Polaroid lovers the world over.

Sadly not everyone respected the site as Kim did and the owner of the house was forced to ask Kim to kindly take it all down, The last Polaroid fell on April 4, 2009 but has been immortalised forever on film.

Click here to see more photos of the house, there's something about it, it just takes your breath away. To read more about Kim and the sadness she felt when "the glory faded" from this beautiful project pay a little visit to Holga Blog.

Enjoy

1960s Polaroid Commercial

Polaroid was in the 60's what Apple is to consumers today.. A must have brand, filled with charisma and constantly pushing new technologies.... It captivated the interest of a nation and with catchy ad spots like the one above, its easy to see why.

Live life like a Polaroid commercial I say.

How to load 600 film into your SX70 Polaroid

Loading 600 film into a Polaroid SX-70 from dotsara on Vimeo

I published this post a while ago, nearly a year in fact but it is still one of the most googled questions and the page that scores the most hits on my blog, You guys sure love a good how to! According to some of the comments below the link is now broken so ive pasted a vido above... This is one of two ways you can sneak a pack of 600 film into your SX70 you can find out the other way here

Read my original post below....

I just got a new sonar SX70, when I say new i mean old... I just converted it to take 6oo and thought Id re-post this for anyone who wants to do the same!

Lets not kid ourselves these be tough financial times we are in and none of us can afford to be battling it out on EBay with some random stranger that goes by the name of *cutesy__mcboo82* for 1 teeny tiny pack of SX-70 film... before you know it the clocks struck midnight and your sitting bleary eyed at your desk, staring blankly at your laptop ,wondering just how exactly you got stuck in a bidding war that ended up with you paying $98 for 10 shots of SX-70 while *cutesy__mcboo82* gets of Scot free!

With this in mind allow me to offer a alternative... Click here to be taken to the Polaroid Website, while keeping in mind we hate them for taking away our beloved film, they have at least been kind enough to offer step by step instructions on how to adapt your SX-70 camera to take 600 Film.

How to load 35mm film into your holga

Ive done this numerous times with varying results and this is by far the best "how to" I've come across yet...

Theres something nice about the fact that just to shoot a 35mm frame you have to go to all the trouble of cutting up foam and jamming rubber bands in places the photography gods would, well, not want you jamming rubber bands - just to take a bloody photo, not quite as easy as slipping a 4GB SD card into your 12 mega pixel camera... but so much more satisfying.

The only thing is in my experience, styrofoam works much better than soft foam, you get less of that blood curdling screeching which tends to make you think wolverine has gone 10 rounds with your negative strip.

Charles and Ray Eames. Polaroid Enthusiasts

We all know they were and amazing husband and wife team when it came to Architecture and industrial design, but did you know they were avid production designers and Polaroid users?

I didn't. But I do now! Check out the film above, its all about the SX-70 and is narrated by Ray Eames herself!

How to Re use your old Polaroid cartridges

Its all kinds of easy to use your empty Polaroid cartridges as frames to display your fave shots, you just need to slide the Polaroid in between the silver and black frames. there is a great "how to" here, or you can blue tack them to the wall or thread some fishing line between the two holes on the back and string up a whole bunch... 

I have been saving mine  for a year now and have approx 50 to work with.... I'm aiming to put together some kind of large mural  in the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes peeled for the results. 

More From Mike Brodie.

There are some fantastic shots here and a nice little summation to go along with them if you, like me, are jones'ing for more of The Polaroid Kid Or lap up, first person, why he does what he does here.. what a bloody crazy cat!

And here

More of the Polaroid House

Some more shots by Kim, The photographer behind the "Polaroid House" project I blogged about below... Click here to see more, it will blow your mind.

100 posts....

This blog started off with a simple introduction and a new years resolution, given my track history with actually keeping those resolutions (I never quite did get around to acquiring my license or stop biting my nails) I hardly expected this here blog to see the end of January let alone make 100 posts.

And here we are, almost 5 months later and 100 posts in... so in honor of this little milestone here are some utterly random facts your brain will probably have to dispose of some much needed information to make room for the useless information below.

Wolves are capable of covering up to 100 miles in a single day
On average 100 people choke on ball point pens every year.
the first 9 prime numbers equal 100....

Random facts aside, this blog has inspired me to look at life through the view finder of my camera more often, I hope its inspired you in some little way too... Oh and best stay away from ball point pens, you know, just to be on the safe side.

The shot above was taken on my Holga using 35mm slide film...

Polaroid Miniportrait 452

Check out what my (super awesome) boyfriend got me for my birthday... It was less than a month ago when i blogged about how cool it would be to own one... If anyone has any handy hints on how to wrangle one of these bad boys I'd love to hear them.

Ive done a bit of research and cant seem to find any online manuals or anything like that, I'm still a little hazy on the type of film it takes, I'm Pretty sure its FP C-100 by Fuji, similar to the EE44... Guess I'll just chuck a roll in and see how the hell I go!

Awkward Family Photos...

Awkward family photos. Don't play dumb... we all have them, and no longer shall they be buried in shoe boxes and stashed underneath the bed... be proud of that over sized straw hat with the giant sunflower sewn into the side your mum made you wear (yes that was me)... or just how high your shorts were up around your neck all those years ago....

Click here to share your embarrassment with the world... you know you want to!

35mm awesomeness

It was my birthday last weekend and I dusted off the old Pentax MZ 50 I saved my pennies and bought when i was 17 years old, it was my first camera and it served me well, so it seems only fitting i take it out of retirement 10 years later...

The shots above were taken with Kodak Elite Chrome 35mm film, or slide film to most people... I have it cross processed (developed in C-41, the same chemicals you use to develop normal negative film) and it really saturates the colours and gives you the most vibrant blues!

With almost everything in our lives digital, touch screen or interactive its nice to return back to the simple life... no cramming our heads around a 3 inch screen to see what the photo looked like, or worse insist it be deleted if god forbid, you failed to capture someones good side.

Just point, shoot and worry about the results later... or better yet not worry about them at all.

The Polaroid triptych series

Ok so im giving you homework... and im giving myself homework too.

Grab your favorite polaroid, your 3 favorite people and set about whipping up your very own Polaroid Triptytch.... its pretty simple, line up each person and take the following happy snaps... head shot, middle shot, feet shot... blue tack them to your fridge door, sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

The idea came from American artist Lee Summers (pronounce artist the fancy french way its much more fun) he aimed to capture a persons identity, importalize their character in three simple Polaroids.... rad idea huh!?!

You know what else is a rad idea... clocking up a visit to his website where you are greeted by this simple message...

Hello.
My name is Lee.
I work at an ad agency is Atlanta
I like hamburgers more than you.
Lets be friends.

How could you say no to a offer like that!

Live Art

Somewhere in Brooklyn, three photographers were each given a Polaroid camera, 150 exposures, a bag of tools, an audience of 300 people dressed as grandmothers.... Already this sounding not so normal right?

Well they were also given two short hours in which to take and assemble 150 photographs into a mosaic, telling some kind of a story.... Shit got a little crazy click here to find out more...

Cross Processing, Holgas and 35mm madness

Last Easter I blogged about the age old dilemma of which camera to pack when going on holidays... OK OK... so its not a age old dilemma and the answer was pretty simple. All of them.

One of the cameras I took was my Holga, in which I put 35mm slide film by filling the 120 gap with foam... This is a pretty hit and miss thing to do as you essentially only capture the middle section of the image your seeing through the view finder, Heads are lopped off, people are cropped out, light is let in left right and centre but you end up with a image burned on the entire negative, perforated edges and all and some pretty random results...

From a roll of 24 where only 16 turned out, the two shots above don't look a thing like i thought they would which is why they are hands down my favorite, and why I love taking photos, you never know what you re gonna get!

Bogus Blog - Surf Photographer

Nice to see not all photographers have sold their souls to the digital revolution. I stumbled across this here blog while aimlessly surfing (pardon the pun) the Internet this afternoon.

His names Morgan Maassan, and he's got one hell of a eye on him for 18 years of age. You can learn more about him here and read his blog here... the shots above were taken with a Minolta SRT101 using Kodak Gold 200.

All hail the grainy photo.

The 1000 Journals Project

Currently 1000 journals are traveling from hand to hand through out the world. They aren't curing world famine or eradicating debt or anything amazing like that, they are simply floating about, living for a little while with each person they come across, allowing that person to make a few pages their own by adding something to the journal, whether it be a story, photograph or drawing before passing it on to the next lucky stranger.

It s so bloody popular you have a better chance of winning the lottery than stumbling across one of these coveted books.... disappointing i know, but don't despair, 1001 journals has recently launched and you can sign up to receive a book here.... while being a fantastic world wide collaborative creative project that's not the only thing that grabbed my attention about this movement.... What really got me was a little tab on the left hand side of the website titled "The search for 114"

What is the search for 114? Well this journal (and #194) were contributed to by a fellow called Andy, who, in typical Aussie fashion had the nick name bearfut. Tragically Andy was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident in 2001 and his family are desperately trying to track down these journals as naturally they would like to transcribe these entries and have forever a little piece of there son.

Journal #114 was taken to Hobart, Tasmania and #194 was taken to the Rainbow Serpent Festival in 2001 and given to a girl name Claire who then passed it on to a DJ named Becca, its last know location was Beaufort and most likely heading for Melbourne. You never know you just may have some information that could help.

Besides searching for the illusive #114 and kick starting 1001 Journals, the mystery fellow behind this little project has just released a book and documentary... click on anyone of these links to find out more.

The Anonymous Photo Project 2

Ive blogged about these crazy cats before right here, and am just such a fan of what they do I just felt the need to remind you all that they exist.

What is it they do you ask? Well do you remember book crossing? the whole leave a book on a park bench and track it as it gets read around the world type deal, well the dudes at Anonymous photo project do something similar but with disposable cameras... They leave them on park benches for folk like you and me to pick up, carry with us through life for a little while and post them back to headquarters to be printed and published on there site.

The shots above are a small example of the gold that comes from the returned cameras. There is approx 200 in circulation around the world.... so keep your eyes peeled people

Click here to find out more.