Polaroid Photo Project Week #2

Here is my next installment of my polaroid photo project. This week I experimented a lot with double exposures in settings other than inside my house. At first I wasn't sure why I kept getting those white washes on the sides of my photos, but I realize now that they were a result of the technique I used to take my double exposure shots... Such carelessness on my part. The way I take double exposures is by popping open the back and gently tilting back the film case for my first shot. Unlike me, try not to let ANY light in (beware of the sides!) in order not to get those white spots. I mean, the white edges looked cool in some of the shots, but I don't want them to appear every time I attempt a double exposure. Therefore, when you take your first picture, take care in tilting the film case back far enough so the camera mechanism doesn't grab the first film sheet, but not so far as to let light in through the top or the sides. Then you can pop the film back in all the way, close the back door, and take your second picture. It takes practice...

In any case, the top left photo is a picture of a large pyramidal play structure in a city about half an hour away from my own. The top right is an attempt at a double exposure of Ocean Beach in San Francisco and my friend sitting in the sand... Then the bottom row from left to right is as follows: a double exposure of me with a shot of some trees; a rather creepy-looking double exposure of my friends sitting at the beach; and a double exposure of another friend with a shot of a parking lot.

Polaroid Photo Project (feat. the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8)

I recently made the decision to buy the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8, a popular polaroid camera selling for about $60-$70 on Amazon. Thanks to Prime, I got my purchase (along with some film) within the same week. :)

I'd read in another review that to buy the Instax Mini is to essentially embrace uncertainty and imperfection. In a manner, that statement is pretty true. This camera isn't digital, which means that prior to taking the picture, you don't get an accurate LED display of what it is going to look like post-snapshot. With the Intstax Mini, you can try to get an accurate gauge of your photographic outcome via the viewfinder, but because the actual lens and the viewfinder are in different positions on the camera, what you see in the viewfinder ultimately won't be exactly what you'll get in the polaroid.

I don't think that this discrepancy is a bad thing at all – in fact, I think part of the fun of getting the Instax Mini is anticipating the look of the final product. After all, even though I do get to plan my photograph to a limited extent (i.e. - viewfinder, adjustable exposure settings), I bought the camera not because I wanted to have "perfect" images, but because I wanted to introduce a degree of spontaneity to my life. I don't get to set the camera up on a tripod and take hundreds of photos before I choose my favorite one. Instead, I have one shot to take a photo, and I can never get that same shot again.

Learning to use the Instax in order to get the kind of brightness I want in a certain setting is a process of trial-and-error. However, I learn to appreciate the genuineness of imperfection and spontaneity. Now to challenge myself to a small polaroid photo project: to document whatever it is I wish to document each week, then upload a round-up to reflect on each moment.

The above photo shows 3 of my favorite polaroid shots from this week. There are 2 more I like that I just took, but I'll include those in the next round-up (*note to self). The polaroid on the top left is a double-exposed photo of my mom's shelf of Chinese novels and the bamboo plant sitting atop the shelf. The photo next to it is my very first Instax photo, a pot of fake sunflowers. The bottom photo is another double-exposed one of two Domo plush toys and a vase of dried roses.