Polaroid I-2 and a Hasselblad

I’ve been a long time fan of making photographs with instant film. Anyone who works with instant film stocks knows it can be a frustrating thing to adore. Over the years the creative community has lost a lot of choices. Everything from the original SX-70 film stocks that could be manipulated while the image was exposing, Type 85 and Type 55 positive/negative film, peel apart pack films from both Polaroid and FujiFilm, the list goes on and on and on. Heck, I even once had the opportunity to work with the massive 20x24 Polaroid camera in a San Francisco studio.

It can be a little sad to think about quite honestly.

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Photographed with a Polaroid I-2 and Polaroid 600 black and white film.

It’s a rare event when instant film users get thrown a very serious bone and today’s iteration of Polaroid did just that when they recently released the Polaroid I-2 camera. This post isn’t meant as a review of that camera, there is plenty of that elsewhere on the internet, but in a nutshell for the first time in a long while we have a brand new camera we can buy today with a quality lens and some creative control over exposure. In a very short amount of time it has replaced my trusty vintage Polaroid SX-70 as my instant camera of choice. I never thought I’d be saying that in the year 2024 so hey, good things do happen!

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Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Delta 120 film.

It is a really common practice for me to expose a few Polaroid prints during photo sessions. I’ll often ask the people I’m working with to hold a pose for just a few more seconds so I can take a snapshot of the scene. Sometimes I’ll give those prints away on the spot to the model. Sometimes I’ll keep them as a quick visual diary of the work I’m doing at the time. Very rarely will I share them on the internet. Instant prints don’t quite have the same power and magic when scanned and shared on a digital screen in my opinion. That’s just part of their charm and power and it is one of the many reasons I like them. Not everything needs to be posted on-line after all.

Still, I thought this was a fun comparison. This isn’t meant as a test to determine which image is better. More of just a reflection that different materials and different mediums can have vastly different vibes and emotions from the same scene.

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Olympia SG-1 on Polaroid SX-70

I have a respectable collection of typewriters in my home and this beast of an Olympia SG-1 is probably my favorite. It forever sits on this little desk in the corner where I punch out letters and journal entries and probably annoy my neighbors with the noise. Anyone who knows anything about typewriters will tell you that the Olympia SG-1 is a massive machine. I actually have trouble lifting it all on my own. It’s a solid hunk of metal that gives off the impression one day it will grow its own consciousness and take over the planet.

When this machine came to me it was inoperable and full of rat shit and dirt and decades of dried oil and dust. I spent two weeks pulling it apart, cleaning it, tinkering, and watching YouTube videos figuring out how to fix it. Nearly every single key was stuck and the majority of the work was just plain old elbow grease with an old toothbrush trying to get the gunk and years worth of grime off every individual part. Now with a fresh ribbon it types like it was new again and will probably continue to type for another century at least, hopefully long after I’m gone.

Now it makes words again. Not very good words mind you. But my words. I try to make it a point to type something on it every single day. It reminds me that the words we speak, the thoughts we give, don’t have to exist purely in this virtual space we call the internet. It’s ok, even heroic in a way, to commit words and thoughts to paper and not share them with anyone but yourself. Or if you do share them, do so with a small and more intimate audience.

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