The new old or the old new

I’ve never made it a secret that I love analogue photography.
However the last few months it has been more and more on my radar and I decided to start doing a series with analogue again, or in other words… I will be shooting some more analogue.

Impossible/polaroid BLUE

When I bought my RZ67ProII a few years ago, the original idea was to only shoot this camera with analogue film, however very soon I added the digital convertor and used my Leaf digital back on the camera (it ROCKS), but I also bought a film back with it and…. a Polaroid back. Now the story about Polaroid is actually not a good one, they went bankrupt so getting film is a huge problem, although Fuji still delivers a very good instant film, I sometimes missed that real Polaroid look, in other words I don’t want accurate rendering, I want something more arty, something more unpredictable, something FUN.

As you know Polaroid was given new life by the amazing people of the “impossible project”. And I’m happy of course that the factory is actually in the Netherlands (have to visit it someday for “The DOORhof is always open”… hummm calling them today) anyway back on topic. While visiting Vienna I met up with Sarah from the Impossible project store in Vienna and as you have seen last week did a small “on the spot, unprepared interview” with her and bought some film. The first image you see in this blog post was done with their BLUE film. For the rest of the images you’re now gonna see I used the Fuji instant film in a mix of natural light and strobes.

Now some people have asked me, “why polaroid, why analogue”.
And I understand, on a daily basis I shoot with the Credo60 from Leaf (medium format 60MP) and the Canon 5DMKIII and of course the Fuji’s and all these cameras have a better “sharpness” and even dynamic range than the analogue counterparts, however one thing they do not do….

The magic of shooting a polaroid, pulling it out of the camera and waiting 90-180 seconds for it to develop plus not knowing what will come out (with some films) it’s …. an experience you have to go through yourself to know what I mean. Analogue film is interesting for another reason, it’s not about the sharpness, detail etc. but it’s about the look, it just looks different. In a few weeks I will show some images from a session with both analogue and digital and I think you will see the difference quite easily.

Do I love analogue more that digital?
NO, I love digital, I’m a real digital guy, but if you love steak it doesn’t mean that you love something else just as much. I will never say that analogue is better than digital, the only thing I do know is that the experience of shooting polaroids and analogue is something that is highly underestimated, there is hardly any margin for errors and the outcome (when done correctly, or wrong on purpose) is something that is unique.

In our studio we have a print on the wall shot with the BLUE film from Polaroid/Impossible scanned on the Epson V700 and although it’s less sharp than a digital print (duh) people are attracted to that print a lot more than the digital prints we have hanging, they just LOVE the look, the feel and all ask “which filter did you use for that color and look”…. when they hear it’s a polaroid the first response is “how did you get it that big”….. remember it’s all about the story and the image, people will look past the sharpness 😀

If you don’t shoot polaroids I highly recommend you guys to check out the Impossible project and score a SX70 camera online (I got mine last week) and start experimenting, I know you will love it.