Photography 24/7 » Polaroids

Fences Around the Block

Thomas — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:09:29 +0000

I’m finding it hard to go for a walk nowadays without bringing a camera along. I’m very fortunate that my wife is quite accepting of this, probably because this is how it’s been for some years now. It’ s just the way it is today.

The other day we went for a little walk around the block, and I brought along the beautiful Polaroid SX-70 loaded with Polaroid 600 film (you’ll need to cut off a few plastic knobs and to put a neutral density filter in front of the film cassette to use this film with the SX-70).

I’m still getting to know the camera better, both in terms of handling but also the exposure. No histograms on the back of the Polaroid SX-70, and each click of the shutter is about $2.00, so ideally you want to get it right every time!

I decided to photograph fences in the neighborhood which resulted in a mini series which I thought I would share here just to mix things up a little bit.

“Graceful”

“Honest”

“Confused”

“Organic”

“Elegant”

It’s a lot of fun shooting with the Polaroid SX-70. Sure, you’ll get some looks from people as they see the camera or hear the Polaroid film ejecting from the bottom of the camera but people think it’s fun and are just curious.

However Polaroid cameras and film is not that rare. There’re a lot of creative photographers using the Polaroid camera and film as their creative tool of choice. If you’re interested in Polaroid photographs I can highly recommend these two books for inspiration:

The Polaroid Book

Andre Kertesz – The Polaroids

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More Test Shots with the Polaroid SX-70

Thomas — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:02:28 +0000

Today I took the SX-70 out for an afternoon walk to do a few more test shots. However at more than US$2.00 per shot (and that’s even with the more economical Polaroid 600 film!) I was a little stingy with my exposures and only took four pictures.

“Tree”

As with one of the images in yesterday’s post this is another shot of a tree against the sky and again there is something funny happening to the colour across the sky.

“Palm Frond”

In this shot I used the ‘Lighten/Darken’ exposure control and darkened the exposure with about one stop as I was shooting a fairly dark green, so I figured the camera would try to overexpose the scene without the correction applied. I really like how the colour has come out ‘Polaroid like’.

“Orange Flower”

In this third shot I decided to try my hand at a motion exposure with the SX-70. Here I set the exposure control to darken with about two and half stops to make sure I got a good long exposure time. I simply moved the camera in circular motions around the orange flower. I would have liked a little bit more of a hint of definition, but I still like the image and the placement of the flower within the frame. The colours also work quite nicely together. This is probably my personal favourite of the four test shots from today.

“Palm Frond Impression”

In the final shot I re-visited the Palm Frond and made another motion exposure. There is a little of that hint of definition that I was missing in the orange flower shot and I quite like how this image turned out as well.

I must say I’m really falling in love with the Polaroid SX-70. I absolutely love the design of this camera, although if you are considering getting one of these prepare yourself that it takes a little while to get comfortable shooting with it. It’s quite ackward to handle the camera at first as it is so different from the cameras we are used to today, but after a while you start to figure out how to hold it and where to place your fingers, so you don’t prevent the Polaroid picture from ejecting from the front of the camera!

All of the images above are scanned using the Epson Perfection V700 scanner and I have made no post processing adjustments to any of the images at all.

You can check out the V700 scanner and the latest prices at B&H Photo, Adorama or Amazon.com. It looks like there are some really good discounts on this scanner at the moment and it was already quite reasonably priced scanner in the first instance. It’s the only film scanner I have left – and intend to keep – after I sold my dedicated Minolta film scanner a few months ago. The V700 scans 35mm, medium format and large format with excellent results.

I hope you have enjoyed the Polaroid test shots above and yesterday.

Now I will spend some time thinking about what type of subjects I would like to shoot with this camera. Ultimately I would like to create a co-herent and significant body of work with the SX-70.

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Test Shots with the Polaroid SX-70

Thomas — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:25:13 +0000

In this post I wrote about the amazing Polaroid SX-70. While I have carried the SX-70 with me quite a bit in the past couple of weeks, it was only recently that I managed to do a few test shots with it and I thought I would just share the results here.

Test Shot #01

In Test Shot #01 above I was shooting straight into the sun and just focused on the fence. I was interested to see how the camera would handle the exposure (I made no exposure corrections with the ‘Lighten/Darken’ control). It resulted in an image with flare and some of that slightly nostalgic Polaroid colour.

Test Shot #02

In Test Shot #02 I was on my way home from a walk with the family when there was an amazing sunset at the end of one of the local streets. The sun was sitting behind a soft layer of cloud which resulted in a beautiful glow and also enabled you to look straight at the sun without damaging your eyes (always be very careful looking straight at the sun and never do so through the viewfinder of your camera). Of course there is no zoom on the Polaroid SX-70, so the big fireball of a sun that we could so clearly see with our eyes became a small dot on the horizon in the image. However it still cast its glow throughout the picture and the final exposure transformed all other elements into a silhouette.

Test Shot #03

Test Shot #03 was shot near home too and here I was mostly interested to see how the red and blue colours would come out. I was somewhat surprised about the flare or light leak in the top of the image as I wasn’t really shooting into the sun even though I was shooting up into the sky. The sun was slightly behind me and to the left, but obviously it must have been near enough to cause the flare or light leak. This might also have affected the colour of the sky which is different from left to right. However it is of course this unpredictability which is a large part of the charm shooting with the Polaroid SX-70.

All of the images above were shot on the Polaroid 600 film.

If you’re interested in the Polaroid SX-70 I might be putting one up for sale on Ebay soon. I have two of the SX-70s as I placed multiple bids on Ebay on different cameras and ended up winning two of them. One of them came to me from the USA and the other one I found locally here in Australia. Both of the cameras are in very good condition, but I will still be test shooting with both of them and make sure they both function as they should. Therefore it might also be another couple of weeks before I make of them available for sale.

If you want to be notified by email when one is available for sale, you can join the Photography 24/7 mailing list by filling in the form below. Joining the mailing list will also provide you with other interesting, periodical updates from Photography 24/7 – and don’t worry, privacy is extremely important to me, so your email address will not be shared with anyone else!