My Polaroids 1987-1995

[petronius]

In 1987 I bought a Polaroid Image/Spectra and fell in love with the concept of instant photography. Over the next years I shot Polaroids nearly exclusively and accumulated a bunch of cameras from the Model 1000 up to the SLR 680, more then 110 models. Last year I sold the whole lot with the exception of two Image cameras and one SX70.
Since some days I am scanning all the old prints and if anyone is interested,
have a look here.

Comments and questions are appreciated!

 

[lynnb]

Nice! Always liked your work Zeno!

Are there more in your instant film archive apart from the ones you linked? I had a scroll through your tumblr time line but couldn't see any.

kind regards,

 

[petronius]

Thank you Lynn! I just started posting Polaroids in my tumblr. I have much more to come. My internet connection is dead slow.

 

[John Lawrence]

Great stuff.

Thanks for posting these - and look forward to seeing more.

John

 

[raid]

I like your posted Polaroid images. Thanks.

 

[petronius]

Thank you! More will come.

 

[charjohncarter]

I was going to ask if more was coming. Thanks for these I enjoyed Polaroids too. Sorry for me it is gone.

 

[robert blu]

It's always nice to look at Polaroid pictures, thanks for linking to your tumblr ! And the first two are so special...love them!
robert

 

[petronius]

Thank you Robert. I tried to push the limited controls of the Polaroid cameras as far as I could. The failure quote was horribly high.

 

[giulio stucchi]

Nice work Petronius! Polaroids have a special place in my heart.
Back in 2007 I bought my first SLR camera (a Pentax K1000) but at the same time I did start collecting and using Polaroid camera and till 2011 most of my photography has been done with all sort of polaroid film and camera type.
I was living in Munich at that time (I see your location is Southern Germany) and getting cameras from second hand shop or flea market was super easy and super cheap at that time.
I knew close to nothing about photography and the instant result helped me to improve my skills and...I can only subscribed this:
"The failure quote was horribly high"
I should dig into my archive too.
The best trick with the image spectra camera was the easy way to get double exposure.
Keep posting please.
Cheers
Giulio

 

[petronius]

Thank you Giulio; the Polaroid has something special for me, but I never really liked the peel apart type. My love always were the SX-70, the Image and the 600, a short while I had a Vision too. The white border gives the image an additional value as a physical object. The double exposures with the Image were real fun!

 

[giulio stucchi]

I was in love with the white borders and the fact that I was not able to crop afterword.

I was shooting a lot of self portrait or at least I was using myself as main subject and that was a challange more often than not.

I did love all the formats and I also tried the vision with some very expired film.

I have very little on line right now, I hope you don't mind if I post one here.

Polaroid type 54, Graflex Crown Graphic:

I will keep an eye on your page.

Giulio

 

[petronius]

Post whatever you want, you´re welcome!
My high school art teacher had taken a Polaroid a day during his university years. Later he photographed the Polaroids and enlarged the negatives to 50x60cm. It was an impressive body of work.

 

[robert blu]

...The failure quote was horribly high.

...I can only subscribed this:
"The failure quote was horribly high" ...

Yes, I know this story 🙂
robert

 

[petronius]

Interesting fact: Some of the failures I put aside thirty years ago are now part of my favorites.

 

[charjohncarter]

Interesting fact: Some of the failures I put aside thirty years ago are now part of my favorites.

I agree, I have a bunch that I'm glad I didn't throw out.

 

[farlymac]

Cool! I started with the roll film models, culminating in the 110B. It was fun until the films started to fall apart because the glue was getting old.

Later on I had an original SX-70, and it was nice, but I couldn't see using up so much money in the days before there were personal desktop scanners, so I sold it to a co-worker. Still, when the Captiva came out, I got one for personal use around the house, sending snap shots home of mundane subjects like my garden, or holiday cooking. But then it got hard to find the film. Switched to a Spectra later on, but didn't use it much.

I've still got the Spectra boxed up somewhere, and there is an SX-70 I picked up for a few dollars when the Impossible Project got started. I was going to get back into using pack film on a 4x5 camera right about the time Fuji up and threw away their manufacturing machines, so I gave away my last pack of that.

My neighbors found a perfectly good 600 when one of the apartments got cleaned out, and I told them I'd order them a pack for it whenever I get some for me. They're still waiting unfortunately. Seeing your photos made me think of what fun I did have with many different Polaroids over the years. I should order some today.

Thanks for the reminder.

PF

 

[petronius]

You´re welcome!
Looking at the old pictures I remembered (not only) the fun too. I will get me some of the new Polaroid packs this weekend and test if the SX-70 and the Spectra have survived twenty years of living on the shelf. Stay tuned.