Exploring the unlikely intersections of walking, photography and making
This is an updated blog post that first appeared on my previous blog site at firmangallery.com. I am particularly proud of the earlier work I did with my antique Cirkut camera and thought you might enjoy revisiting it as well. From December 20, 2014 to May 3, 2015 the National Gallery of Canada exhibited two... Continue Reading →
My two year—and counting—foray into the wild world of Polaroid SX-70 photography has taken me in various directions. Recently, I have been working with Polaroid Black and White 600 film and this has led to my current project at Camp Morton Provincial Park in Manitoba. Established as a Fresh Air Camp in 1921, the site... Continue Reading →
Note: There is a video version of Using the Zone System with Polaroid SX-70 Film, Part 1 at the bottom of this post. It would be nice to adjust exposures in ½ EV increments with my MiNT SLR670-S camera. Unfortunately, the camera can only make full shutter speed adjustments, one EV at a time; there... Continue Reading →
Note: There is a video version of Using the Zone System with Polaroid SX-70 Film, Part 1 at the bottom of this post. In Part 1, I explained the theory behind the Zone System, how I thought it might benefit today’s serious SX-70 photographer and I painstakingly outlined my process for taking the photos required... Continue Reading →
Note: There is a video version of Using the Zone System with Polaroid SX-70 Film, Part 1 at the bottom of this post. SX-70 film is a remarkable feat of engineering. To think that the entire photographic process—taking a photo, developing the negative, printing the negative, developing the print, framing the print—is all done in... Continue Reading →
One of several limitations of the current crop of SX-70 films is their sensitivity to temperature. Taking a picture below 13°C could result in a dark, muddy image with a blue/green cast and lacking contrast. Technically, the developer “goo” that spreads across the image as it is ejected from the camera is, more likely than... Continue Reading →
This is the final set of Polaroids in my From Our Windows project. I could continue of course. It's not as if the pandemic has suddenly vanished. But I am comfortable with what I have captured over the past three months. When I lay out my eighty-plus little framed images, I can see a complete... Continue Reading →
This is the third and final series of Polaroid SX-70 pictures altered with alcohol inks. It has been a curious exercise. Although I apply the inks as a single, tiny dot, how it spreads across the glossy surface of the photo is totally unpredictable and uncontrollable. How appropriate!
In 1977, when André Kertész began his Polaroid SX-70 series From My Window, he started with a glass figurine, a crystalline icon for his recently departed wife, Elizabeth. In 2020, the iconography of our times is not one of remembrance and reverence but of dread and an unknown future. Midway through my own From Our... Continue Reading →
My experiments with alcohol ink on Polaroids continue.