Polaroids

[nanila]

I got some Polaroid 600 film refills for my camera. Polaroid had a 50% off sale prior to Christmas and I spent a lot of time dithering over cameras until the bloke said, “You already have one, why don’t you spend that £50 on the film you want to shoot rather than on another camera?” Fair point, I thought, so I did. I bought the blue and yellow duochrome films.

It’s proven useful over the school holidays, as it helps to motivate the kids out for a walk, and to look carefully for the one or two shots they’re going to take with the camera. They’re used to being able to take a zillion shots with a phone or dSLR camera, so planning and saving up their film for a shot they really want to take keeps them engaged in the activity.

Some results below.






The film develops very differently depending on the ambient conditions. On the 22nd, it was cold (near 0 degrees C) and dry, so we allowed the films to develop as we carried them around. They bleached out in patches. On the 24th, it was warmer (around 10 degrees C) and a little damp, but not raining, so we let them develop in the air as above and they turned out better. Yesterday (the 27th) it was cold again and raining continuously, so I brought a camera bag and placed the films in an envelope to develop. The bag got wet and the envelope was decidedly humid when I removed it on our return home. The toning is very different, dark and rather sombre.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Polaroid is a style of photography I never got into even though I've had a go at most things.

[nanila]

I have mixed feelings about it as the battery pack in the film is a one-shot.

[shirebound]

planning and saving up their film for a shot they really want to take keeps them engaged in the activity.

What a marvelous idea!

[nanila]

Thanks! I also have a standard 35mm film camera that we use sometimes but because the results are not near instantaneous it doesn't always work as well.

[silveradept]

Those are good shot selections for display, and I hope thinking about composing and framing their shots for single exposures is helping the small ones think about how they will do the same with the digital cameras.

[nanila]

I find it interesting that they're choosing to take architectural shots rather than portraits - it's a shift from their use of the phone / dSLR usage.

[silveradept]

My first thought in that is "Buildings don't move," which may or may not be their thinking, but if I've got one or two shots to take, then it's a lot easier for me to get a good shot of the architecture than to try and capture a perfect frame of action. Maybe the Shaggy Ponies would be good for photographing with the Polaroids.