No. 9 "Always Expect the Unexpected"

I went out shooting a couple weeks ago before it started raining and shot a pack of PX600 UV+ on my Polaroid SX-70. These two photos are my favorites from the pack. Although I effectively only had 6 shots that had images on them out of the 8 total in the pack. Sometimes problems happen when you shoot instant film and you just have to work through them. Midway through the pack, the camera (which is over 30 years old) didn't reset itself properly after taking a shot. The only way to reset it manually is to take the pack of film out and put it back in, so that's what I did. Only the uppermost photo must have shifted a bit when I took the pack out, because when I went to take the next shot, two photos came out at the SAME time. The result was interesting to say the least, but I kind of like the one on the left though, so I guess it's not a total waste!

No. 8 "What's Your Favorite?"

I have a really hard time knowing which of my photos other people will love. I'm always surprised at peoples reactions when I show them my photos. They may just glance at my favorite in the pile, and then be crazy about a different one that I didn't even give a second look at. So I decided to try and start a series in which I post some of my favorite photos and attempt to explain in a few words why I like them. So let's start with this this:

WYF #1

I really like this one and I think it's because of Entropy (yes, Entropy). The grasses surrounding the cover are just chaotic and disordered, while the cover itself is the exact opposite. It is a perfect circle and has those nice converging lines. It's going against the universe and has ∆S<0. The image is also simple and the contrast also adds a kind of stark quality to the image that I like.

No. 7 "Peeling? What's Peeling?"

Everyone knows the famous white border around Polaroid photos, but they didn't always look like that. Peel-apart film came before the all-in-one or integral film that is so iconic. Aptly named because you have to peel away the print from the negative. Straight out of the camera you have the print and negative sandwiched around the chemicals. After a specified amount of development time, you peel away the print from the negative. The whole process is much more messy than with integral film because you have exposed chemicals and you have to dispose of the negative.


Using peel-apart film is by no means foolproof. You have to manually pull the film out of the camera and the quality of the print depends on how fast or slow you pull. Then you have to time the development time accurately based on the ambient temperature and the contrast and color tones depend on how long you let it develop before you peel. Plus, on some of the older versions of the black and white film, you had to apply a coating to the prints so that they wouldn't fade. This is why Polaroid invented integral film, because all you truly have to do is point and shoot. The camera and film do the rest for you!

No. 6 "Larger Than Life"

Polaroid macro-photography is not something you'll hear or see very often. So naturally I was intrigued when I found out that Polaroid made a macro camera! The camera is called the Macro 5 SLR, uses Spectra film, and has five fixed magnification settings ranging from 0.2x to 3x. The camera is huge, though, it's about the size of your head! That's only a minor drawback however since it can take some pretty spectacular photos.

No. 5 "That Lovely Green Tone"

Polaroid Artistic Time Zero film (or ATZ for short) was made from expired Time Zero chemicals after they stopped production of the original Time Zero film for SX-70 cameras in 2006. Because ATZ was made with expired chemicals, the film has some quirky characteristics, its biggest one being that the image starts turning green in the (sometimes hours) days and weeks after the initial development. The scans above were taken just after the photos were taken and they have since developed a more pronounced green color cast. The film also has such a nice softness to it, and the scan just does not do it justice of just how beautiful the originals actually are.

No. 4 "Fade to Black..."

When Polaroid released the Artistic TZ "Fade to Black" film at the end of their manufacturing days, many people hated it and thought it was a terrible idea. Their reasoning? The film was made without a fixer so the chemicals would keep on developing until the image "faded to black" after about 24 hours. The only way to stop the process was to peel open the photo and let the chemicals dry. The film soon became popular because of the beautiful colors and effects that it produced. Sadly though, they only produced a small amount of the film with leftover materials and the film is now extremely rare to find.

The most spectacular colors come and go within the first few minutes of developing so you you really need to be prepared to peel as soon as you take the shot if you want to capture those colors. Here is my favorite shot with this film, peeled after about 2-3 minutes.

No. 3 "Into the Night"

 If someone came up and asked me what my favorite time to take pictures was, I'd have to say at night. I love night photography. Some of my favorite shots were taken at night. Different colors seem to come out at night, more vibrant colors. Artificial lights also create different colors that you have to be careful of. Scenes seem to take on a different tone at night, too.

I have an entirely different shooting process at night. Every step takes longer because you're generally shooting with a tripod and setting the exposure for the scene is more complicated, plus the exposures can get really long really fast. When shooting film in low light situations you have to worry about the film's "reciprocity failure." For longer exposures, the film becomes exponentially less reactive to light, so you have to make the exposure even longer to compensate for this. I'm usually in one spot for at least 5 minutes while I make sure everything is just right, plus I usually take several different exposures of the same scene just in case. You can also shoot hand held with really fast film, like the last image which was shot on ISO 3200 film to freeze "action" scenes.

When I'm out shooting at night, I really enjoy the whole process and the final result is pretty cool, too!