I’m an ardent Polaroid fan. The SX-70 fea­tured here was the first pur­chase I ever made on eBay. It arrived in pris­tine con­di­tion and smelling of cig­ars — not unpleas­ant, just … dis­tinct. :) The scent has sub­sided over the years; but every time I open the case I get a faint whiff and smile, imag­in­ing the first owner. I’d never han­dled an SX-70 before and was unsure how to open it from a closed posi­tion, so I took it to a local cam­era shop for help. Barely in the door, I was mobbed by employ­ees who oohed, aahed, and then shoved each other out of the way to show me how to oper­ate it. That was the first time I observed Polaroid rap­ture up close, and it was far from the last. Back then Time-Zero film was still avail­able — expen­sive, but I didn’t care. The entire expe­ri­ence was magic and the cost of film just made each shot all the more precious.

When any­one asks what ini­tially got me excited about pho­tog­ra­phy, why I began to pur­sue it seri­ously, I describe the win­ter day I took my SX-70 to the North­west Rail­way Museum in Sno­qualmie and snapped pix of the trains. I learned that when Time-Zero film gets cold, it devel­ops with a pre­dom­i­nantly blue cast. My close-ups of train parts appeared cool, moody, and I was com­pletely enchanted.

In 2005 pro­duc­tion of Time-Zero film ceased. Turned out I’d got­ten to the party at the 11th hour. But then late in 2008 sev­eral for­mer employ­ees of Polaroid’s Hol­land film plant (the last man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­ter for the ‘inte­gral’ SX-70, 600, and Spec­tra films) and Aus­trian entre­pre­neur Flo­rian Kaps under­took The Impos­si­ble Project. They were able to lease the film plant and res­cue the 9 inte­gral film assem­bly machines before they were demol­ished and hauled off for scrap. Visit the site to read their story and see the amaz­ing fruits of their labor.

Years ago archi­tec­tural pho­tog­ra­phers used instant cam­eras to scout loca­tions in prepa­ra­tion for photo shoots, doc­u­ment­ing the look of inte­ri­ors and exte­ri­ors in rela­tion to var­i­ous times of day, the light — where it’s bright­est, where the shad­ows fall — and of course to develop com­pelling com­po­si­tion. In the won­der­ful doc­u­men­tary Visual Acoustics: The Mod­ernism of Julius Shul­man (2008), Shul­man — arguably, the most famous archi­tec­tural pho­tog­ra­pher of the 20th cen­tury — made great use of his Polaroid cam­era (in con­junc­tion with state of the art dig­i­tal equip­ment) right up to the time of his retire­ment and death last year.

I’m a plan­ner — Mar­i­lyn will vouch for this :) — and love the scout­ing aspect of shoot­ing archi­tec­ture. For fun I decided to give it a go “old school” with my SX-70 at Seat­tle City Hall. The shots in my photo were taken with exper­i­men­tal Artis­tic Z film cre­ated by The Impos­si­ble Project for use with the SX-70. It devel­ops with yellow/green over­tones, often with spots and blem­ishes, and it will prob­a­bly fade over time. And, you guessed it, the cost has increased. But the expe­ri­ence of press­ing the red but­ton, hear­ing the noisy whir as the pic­ture exits the cam­era, and watch­ing it process remains a thrill. :)

Rec­om­men­da­tion: The Polaroid Book (Selec­tions from the Polaroid Col­lec­tions of Pho­tog­ra­phy). Edwin Land was bril­liant, his long stand­ing rela­tion­ship with Ansel Adams inte­gral to the growth of the instant cam­era, and images included in Taschen’s text are noth­ing short of inspi­ra­tional. Recent news: Sotheby’s sale in June of 1,200 pho­tographs from the collection.

Image avail­able with a RF license: Old Style Scouting

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