I’m trying to figure out what kind of pictures I want to take with my new instamatic camera, the Fujifilm Instax.
It’s so different from my iPhone which takes photos that are sometimes almost too sharp, the details too exact. The Instax photos are softer in the color and detail.
Although the photos are instant, they evoke the passage of time. Not just because the pictures from Instamatic cameras are a reminder of another time, when they were popular, but because once image is captured, it then belongs to the past.
This is a photo of the mirror and medicine cabinet (from 1956) in our bathroom. The shadow from the window above the mirror is what captured my eye. But when I was taking the photo, I found the reflection in the mirror as interesting.
Mostly l like the feeling of the photos. When they work, they seem to have a presence about them. Something almost ghost-like.
I love the way that shadow lurks above the mirror – ghostlike, as you say. I felt the same way about the pictures I took with an old Polaroid I’d found at a tag sale – the images were instant, but felt vintagey, and weirdly arresting.
There is something about them Tara. They are so much about feeling.
Your photo does have a certain soft and timeworn atmosphere – beautiful. If you’re not already acquainted with Patti Smith and her love of Polaroid photography, you might like to check out her books: M Train and Just Kids. I haven’t seen her newest book about creativity, which may also include some of those pictures (as well as unique writing).
Yes, Suzanne. It is Patti Smith’s polaroids that give me an idea about using the medium. And I adore her books. Jon just got me a hardcover copy of Just Kids, which I read when it first came out. The hard cover has beautiful reproductions of her work. Thanks for mentioning her.