Death of Polaroid / Moerenuma

As everyone knows they stopped making Polaroid film and the last batch expired more than a month ago now. I still had two films (one left now) and was looking forward to using them up, so I took the big, lumpy camera-cum-spaceship to Moerenuma Park when Andy, Yuki, Tara and I went there for an "outing" last week.

The first time I pressed the button on the new film two pictures came out at once, one blank, the other partly ruined / enhanced by the effect you can see below (hint: there wasn't really a giant caramel blanket over half of the world). After that the camera refused to finish the film and now the plastic film cartridge seems to be jammed in.

So maybe they weren't shitting about that expiry date huh?!

Or maybe it's just that I've got some midas touch that breaks cameras at the moment.

Either way, I'm really happy with the way some of these shots came out. In scanning them I've tried to preserve the "Polaroid Palette" as much as possible. As Andy said, it has an instant-nostalgia effect - when he looked at the snaps he felt like it was the record of some warm, old memory; when in fact the trip had been earlier that day.





I hope you enjoyed that latest installment of "The Last Days of Polaroid." I'm going to take a knife to the camera and try to drag it out a little longer.

Park Review! Nopporo Forest Park

Disaster strikes! Unsurprisingly (considering I dropped it in the snow three times, on the beach once, and onto concrete more than once) my camera is dying in fits and starts. Most of the time now when I turn it on I'm faced with a black void, which is also what I get when I take photos and although I could, y'know, "make lemonade" and turn my blog into a 365 project about "null", it's a pretty big pain in the ass.

The first time it happened was when Yuki and I drove out to Nopporo Forest Park - home of the Hokkaido Historical Village (which we didn't check out) and the Hokkaido Centennial Memorial Tower (which we did).

The Centennial Memorial tower is very tall, and since it's located far to the East of Sapporo, where there's nothing quite as tall you often notice it when you're looking across the city from other lookout points. Also the fact that it's shaped like a sinister, black, tapering spike makes it pretty eye catching too.

I've always wanted to visit the tower (which, seriously, would make a great villain's lair in almost any vaguely "dark" genre), and while we could only climb to the low observation window, it still gives you a great view of the city with the mountains in the background.

These are the photos that I took before my camera succumbed to... the darkness:




Like that first one? It's all about the juxtaposition of the light and shadow, presence and absence and...

Man, I hope my camera heals itself soon.

Death of Polaroid / Moment of Silence

A great photo feature in the Guardian this week alerted me to the fact that the last batch of film manufactured for my beloved polaroid camera (that I have owned for approximately four months) apparently expires at the end of the month. Since I still have two film "cartridges" for the beast I guess I should use 'em up. I'm not too fussed though, I imagine that I can push that expiry date a bit, as you can with most dry goods.

Still I took the hefty thing with me when I went out yesterday, and I reckon I'll burn through those last two films pretty quickly. Here's the end of the first film I bought:


And here's what's left to use - hungry, gaping maw and all:


The, ah, guitar isn't actually essential for taking photos of course. My appartment is just pretty messy at the moment. Ideas for projects involving twenty polaroid photos would be very welcome.

Polaroid Joy

So, Bunny bequeathed me a fantastic device upon her departure for England... a device the old ones call "A Polaroid Camera". That is, she has more than one, and she figured she could fit another four rolls of tape with animals on it into her case if she ditched the camera in Japan. I'm not sure how many polaroid cameras Bunny has - at times I imagine she lives in a hut on the moor, built entirely from polaroid cameras held together by animal pattern tape.

Anyway, this weekend I obtained film for said camera at a princely cost. Seriously, a real stomp to the wallet. But the sheer joy of weilding this huge plastic box that "k'chonk"s open and spits out actual physical photos soon put my misgivings away.



On polaroid film everything looks like it takes place in the 1970s and is awesome.