Polaroids!

There was a time when a 30 second Polaroid was considered ‘instant’. LOL!!! I don’t have any of my commercial polaroids anymore. These are from my Natural Light Portrait series at Burning Man. When I was shooting these portraits I would shoot two polaroids of each subject. They got to pic which one they wanted and I put the other one with the model release. I wasn’t concerned about having a great polaroid on file. I knew the film would be all that mattered. These polaroids are from a 6x7cm camera. Right around 2 1/4 inches squarish. That is all you had to go on for checking things like if your image fits a specific crop. If your image is sharp or if the camera was functioning properly. No zooming in 400% to check something in the background like we do now.

Polaroid is temperature and time sensitive. In colder conditions, shortly after you shoot a polaroid it was stuffed in your jacket or under your arm pit to help with processing. At Burning Man I was more concerned about excessive heat but, I was confident with my light meter so it wasn’t much of a concern.

Polaroid has a bit of a cult following so if you are interested in more info then click here.