Filed under: experimental, photography, polaroid by ramune

Memory Tapes – Bicycle

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As you can probably tell from previous posts, I have struggled a bit to get results I am happy with when using The Impossible Project’s film. I recently got my hands on their new PX 680 color test film and am really excited about it. I love the colors and the photos are coming out a lot clearer (this might be due to my new controlled way of covering the film when it is ejected from the camera, and not a new quality of the film). Can’t wait to shoot more of this film!

On another note, this bicycle looks really sad. I am surprised the seat is still on it.

Filed under: experimental, photography, polaroid by ramune

José González – Far Away

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The other day I showed my friend Hoi the pile of Polaroids I had gone through to select the twelve that will be in the Polaroid Retrospective II show (which opens Saturday, April 9th). It was interesting to see his reactions to the photos, because he was not as into some of the photos I had decided were definitely in, and he really liked some that I thought had too many things wrong with them . . . like this one. I still like this Polaroid, but for a number of reasons I didn’t think it would fit with the rest of the photos . . . so it’s going up here instead.

The image is dark brown because I was playing around with using a cold/hot clip to warm up the photo during development. I think it may have stayed under my arm a little too long, but I still like how it turned out . . . especially that unintentional !.

Filed under: experimental, film, polaroid by ramune

Benoît Pioulard – Shouting Distance

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This week’s polaroids were taken on The Impossible Project‘s First Flush Color Shade film. It has taken some getting used to, but I find when using it in high contrast situations (like a sunny day at the antique shops in Lucketts, VA) I quite like the results.

Last week I saw Benoît Pioulard live in Brooklyn and really enjoyed the show. As if I wasn’t listening to his music enough before seeing him live, now I can’t seem to listen to anything else. I am particularly fond of this song between 0:50 – 1:30 minutes.

Note: Please excuse those pesky Newton’s rings. I might rescan them when I have a moment and see if I can get rid of them.

Filed under: experimental, photography, polaroid by ramune

Tipper – Screw Loose

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Five months ago (to the date), I took two photos with The Impossible Project’s Fade to Black film an let it go completely black. My sister heard from the people at The Impossible Project store in NYC, that if you put the photos in direct sunlight the image will come back somewhat. It took a number of months, but you can finally see what the original image was.

Filed under: experimental, photography, polaroid by ramune

Interpol – Success

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Summer is coming to an end and I have only made it to the ocean once (not including dipping my feet into the Pacific). I drove 3.5 hours each way in one day for seven hours in the ocean and it was completely worth it. Both the SX-70 and Holgaroid (Holga with polaroid back) accompanied me to the beach and were put to use. I used Impossible Project’s PX 70 color shade film in the SX-70 and expired Polaroid 100 Blue film in the Holgaroid. If I can manage another day trip out there now that the masses are gone I will most definitely do it.

Filed under: experimental, film, photography, polaroid by ramune

Crystal Castles – Magic Spells

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I’ve been editing digital photos like they are going out of style, so I took a break to scan some of my recent Impossible Project Polaroids taken with my (sister’s) SX-70 camera. This little triptych is from my adventures in picking figs off my mother’s fig tree, which is exploding with deliciously beautiful fruit this year (and every year). The cardinals and the wasps love them too, so they need to be picked pretty much every day this time of year to ensure they don’t get overripe on the tree. Plans for this year’s crop include fig ice cream (made by me) and fig chutney (made by my mother). Mmm . . . I can’t wait! In the meantime I will eat them fresh.

Note: As with the rest of the photos on my blog, you can click it to see it larger.

Filed under: experimental, film, polaroid by ramune

Beach Fossils – Youth

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Here are two more photos from my experiments with the Fade to Black film from The Impossible Project. Unlike the last two Fade to Black polaroids I posted, I stopped the development on these two photos of peonies around 3-5 minutes after I shot them (a week apart). The first photo was shot inside and the second was shot outside. After I finish this set of Fade to Black film, I am going to see if there is anything I can do about the rollers that are leaving the stripes across the photos.

Filed under: experimental, film, photography, polaroid by ramune

Broken Bells – Mongrel Heart

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A few weeks back my sister brought down her (beautifully designed) Polaroid SX-70 camera for us to play with. She bought it at a thrift store for $5 years ago and now if you try to find one on ebay it will cost over $100 (and over $300 new). I imagine this is partly due to The Impossible Project, an interesting group that saved the last Polaroid production plant (in the Netherlands) and has been recreating Polaroid film from scratch. Some of their first batches are a bit quirky but they seem to be refining their process.

When my sister first brought the camera down, we tried out their PX 100 Silver Shade film. I haven’t scanned those photos yet, but they were a mixed bunch. Since we had one of the first batches of this film, the backing was a bit leaky. Supposedly they have figured that out and are fixing it for the next batch.

This last time she came down, we played with the Fade to Black film, which I was really excited experiment with. So far I have only taken a few photos with it, but the basic idea is that the film turns completely black within 24 hours after you take the photo, unless you remove the backing and stop the process. I imagined it would be a gradual process, however after taking these two photos, we noticed the film went almost black within an hour or so. Both of these photos of the polaroids were taken around 5-10 minutes into the development. Supposedly if you let them go completely black and then leave them in a sunny place for a few weeks, part of the image will come back. Depending on how they tun out, I might post those results.

P.S. Please excuse (what we think are) the roller marks on the photos. They seem to show up more in some photos and less in others. Maybe that’s why the camera only cost $5.

Filed under: experimental, photography by ramune

Plaid – Twin Home

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I took these double exposed photos over the course of a couple months during the summer/autumn of 2009, but I only just got the roll developed last week. I first shot the roll on my Olympus OM-2n and then shot over it with my lomography fisheye camera (at the farmers market). I wasn’t particularly thrilled with most of the roll (there’s only so many tomatoes overlapping country scenes I can take), but I do really like how these two came out.

Filed under: enamel, experimental, jewelry by ramune

The other week I had my last enamels class of the summer (sadness). Because the summer session is so short, I didn’t have any grand plans for anything, but wanted to play around with a wee bit of metal forming and making earrings. I started off this particular pendant wanting it to have a nice gradient of transparent red to gray. Unfortunately while I had it in the kiln, I managed to overfire the red (this is easy to do with reds) and it became a disgusting opaque vomitous brown. I was pretty upset because before this accident the red was really quite lovely and I destroyed it so quickly. After that unfortunate moment I decided I had nothing to lose, so I intentionally continued to overfire it until it was obvious nothing else would change. It was still an object unpleasing to the eye, so I put it under the torch (weeee!). To my pleasant surprise, putting a torch to enamels in the right way gives even the most foul of colors a metallic pearlescent sheen. After playing around with this a bit I decided the piece was finally done and acceptable. This is nothing I would have intentionally created, but sometimes it’s fun to mess up and then play around with the piece until you get something else completely.