polaroid
I was six the first time I took a Polaroid.
It was Christmas. My cousin had gotten one, and I pressed the button. The single greatest sound I had ever heard whirred through the camera. As the frame slid out, my sloppy six-year-old finger squeezed a fingerprint into the lower right corner.
I watched the image develop. I couldn't understand how the zebra-print purse was in the picture when it didn't exist in real life.
That was the beginning.
I need to destroy the process to find the method.
Polaroid was where I first learned that a photograph could be both evidence and illusion. I keep coming back to it because there is something about an instant photograph that is unpredictable.
I work with different instant cameras and formats, including emulsion lifts and a Mamiya Universal Press with a 3D-printed back. I change cameras, film, timing and exposure and see what happens. Sometimes I am trying to make something specific. Sometimes I just push things until they stop behaving the way they are supposed to.
I like seeing what happened. Fingerprints, chemical reactions, movement, mistakes and mechanical failures.
The camera, the film, my hands and whatever went wrong along the way are all in there.
I am interested in the moment when something familiar starts to look unfamiliar. A Polaroid is supposed to show you what was there. I'm interested in what happens when it starts telling you something else.
Polaroid runs alongside the rest of my work. Constant play, reaction, response.
Can I capture something that isn't supposed to exist?