Polaroids from the Edge

« Snapshot from Mark Maher's American Polaroids. »

I've been noticing that Polaroid SX-70 cameras and snapshots are really making a comeback. I'm not really sure why as I had one of those cameras back in the 70s and the photos were either totally weird from inappropriate colours or they would disintegrate within a few years. So I'm a little surprised to see them becoming a new retro-hip item, especially since the film is even more expensive now than it was in the 70s.

One particularly good use of the polaroid medium I've seen is American Polaroids by Mark Maher. The monologues are worth watching as the polaroid slide show is synchronized to his talking which makes for an interesting guided tour of sorts. He's an American who, if I read correctly, lives here in Helsinki and shares a lot of the same inner conflicts about the country we both used to inhabit. The snapshot of Ronald McDonald is as creepy as it is revealing. He's also thinking about what will be considered folk art in 20 or 30 years which is interesting since I usually look around and wonder what will be dug up by archaeologists far into the future and it is likely the very mundane that will survive us all. We live in the mundane and pass by the same things every day without looking at the subtle changes in it or the details it tries to convey. A photo of a grocery store aisle from the 70s is far, far more interesting than yet another artsy picture of some building somewhere. Maher does a fine job of documenting some of the more random, bizarre and utterly banal bits of America.

I also stumbled across PolaroiDiary somewhere while wandering around the web. An American expat living in Hamburg who posts, usually, a picture every day. I should write to him and explain that his passport number may be visible on the legal alien polaroid as the format requires that it be on the machine readable lines on the bottom.

And, lastly, I just found a fabulous reason to buy Kodachrome for the Lomo, a really cool lampshade! I subscribed to the first issues of ReadyMade and wasn't all that excited since its market seemed to be all the kids too young for Martha Stewart and not technical enough for Popular Mechanics with most of the projects being really impractical. This isn't very practical but it's simple and creative without being gaudy. It sure beats slide shows. :)