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CONTENT | ISSUE 31 Featured Photographers 22 Maurizio Galimberti 30 Emilie Le Fellic 38 Juan Felipe Rubio 48 Anthony R. Vizzari 54 Jennifer Rowsom 58 Mike Nourse 62 Andy Bloxham 66 Jenna Denlinger Exclusive Feature 70 David Salinas Polaroid Manipulation ID-UV Book Reviews 74 [Snapshots] 1 By Matthew Burlem 78 The Polaroid Book TASCHEN Release News Lady Gaga 82 Creative Director at Polaroid Special Feature 84 The Impossible Project Special Events 86 Facing the Impossible Digitizing Polaroid Tutorial 88 Dominik Fusina Product Review 90 Canon PowerShot G12 92 Polaroid SX-70
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The Mosaic Maker | Maurizio Galimberti
Maurizio Galimberti
The Mosaic Maker
Maurizio Galimberti was born in Como, Italy in 1956 and grew up in Meda. He was trained as a surveyor where he developed his rigorous point of view. As a young man, he has won many photography competitions using classic analog film, mainly working in black and white and in diapo/cibachrome with a Widelux camera. In the year 1983 his passion/ obsession with the Polaroid camera began. His long journey of research and experimentation with instant photography were driven by his love of the resulting colors. It was in the early 1990s that Galimberti left the family business in pursuit of photography as a full-time career.
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His long journey of research and experimentation with instant photography were driven by his love of the resulting colors.
In 1991, Galimberti began his collaboration with Polaroid Italia, which led to his position as their official spokesperson. In 1995, he published the book Polaroid Pro Art, a true cult book for those passionate about Polaroid. He developed his own peculiar technique of Polaroid mosaics under the influence of Boccioni’s futurism and Duchamp’s kinetic movement. The fame achieved with these unusual representations of faces took Galimberti to the Venice Film Festival several times as the official portraitist.
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In the 2003 edition of the Festival, his portrait of Johnny Depp was the cover of The Times Magazine in England in the same year. He collaborated with leading companies such as: Milan Calcio (Il Milan Del Centenario), Fiat Auto (2006 calendar, and Viaggio in Italia… Nuova fiat 500), Kerakoll (NewYork Matericomovimentosa), Jaeger Lecoultre (La Grand Maison), Illy caffè (2008 campaign), Nokia (Telefoninotempoemozione), and Lancia Auto (portraits during the 66th Venice Film Festival).
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He developed his own peculiar technique of Polaroid mosaics under the influence of Boccioni’s futurism and Duchamp’s kinetic movement.
In 2005, Galimberti met Mr Fumagalli, who supported Galimberti in the publication of important books about the main cities of the world such as New York, Venice, Berlin, and who founded The Archivio Nord Est, which collects and keeps Galimberti’s artwork. Galimberti is also visiting professor at the Domus Academy and Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan. He teaches photographic workshops during the main photo festivals, and his work is part of some of the most important art and photo collections. Galimberti is currently working on a book about Milan on occasion of the 2015 Expo. © All images courtesy of Maurizio Galimberti www.MaurizioGalimberti.it
Johnny Depp
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The Mosaic Maker | Maurizio Galimberti
George Clooney
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Benicio Del Toro
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The Mosaic Maker | Maurizio Galimberti
Catherine Zeta Jones
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Lady Gaga
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The Mosaic Maker | Maurizio Galimberti
Sting
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Kate Winslet
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The Language of Nostalgia | Emilie Le Fellic
Emilie Le Fellic
The Language of Nostalgia
Emilie Le Fellic lives in Paris, France, where she was born in 1979. She grew up in Les Ulis, a suburban neighborhood, and studied English and linguistics at the University of the Sorbonne, Paris. She now teaches English at the University of Marne-la-Vallée. From quite an early age, Le Fellic started keeping track of the present through diaries, drawings, sound recordings and little scrapbooks – anything that would, one day, help recover the precious moments of the past. It was when she moved for the first time to London, England, to study literature at Goldsmiths College that her sense of anticipated nostalgia for the present became even sharper, especially through the reading of Marcel Proust’s In Search for Lost Time and other works on diary-writing and autobiography, which she was writing an MA dissertation on. The notions of nostalgia and intimacy started brewing in her mind, but it wasn’t until a few years later, when she returned to London for the second time to study Linguistics at UCL, that a way of expressing them began to form, in the shape of little music videos. Those rather low-key montages were a way to weave together evocative music, emotional words/lyrics and motion pictures of cherished places, people and moments.
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The notions of nostalgia and intimacy started brewing in her mind, but it wasn’t until a few years later that a way of expressing them began to form, in the shape of little music videos. In 2005, as a new era of sharing began to dawn on the Internet, she started to show her works on Youtube and Myspace – which led her to meet and/or collaborate with musicians such as M83, Chandeen, Laudanum, The Kara Sea, Cybo, and others. It was whilst working on one such video, trying to find new inspirations that she came across Polaroid photographs on Flickr.com. She was so moved by the dreamlike, melancholy colors of Time Zero film that
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she bought her first Polaroid camera, an SX70, a few days later. To this day, she owns no less than a dozen Polaroid cameras, and uses them on a daily basis. A few months after she started, Polaroid announced in January 2008, it was to stop manufacturing instant film and cameras. Shooting Polaroid film then meant shooting an extinct medium, which made the whole Polaroid experience very intense and moving. Le Fellic quickly got involved in worldwide Internet Polaroid communities such as Polanoid. net, which did their best to keep the Polaroid spirit alive and rescue the production of film.
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Shooting Polaroid film then meant shooting an extinct medium, which made the whole Polaroid experience very intense and moving. When the Impossible Project came into existence in January 2010, she was selected as one of the pioneer testers of the very first new film materials, and some of her pictures were exhibited in the NYC Impossible Gallery. She was also part of the Impossible Project’s ‘Facing the Impossible’ exhibition at Photokina Festival in September 2010. Le Fellic’ has created Polaroid artwork for the promotion of various musicians such as the French band Yalloh, and in March 2010, she shot French singer RoBERT, who used one of her photographs as a concert poster in the prestigious Paris concert-hall L’Olympia. In April 2010, Le Fellic released A Girl’s Polaroids, a self-edited book of about 120 Polaroids taken between 2007 and 2009, exploring the notions of love, intimacy, memory, nostalgia, loss, solitude, frustration, selfdestruction - in a somewhat soft, dreamy and poetic manner.
Tear A Chair
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The Language of Nostalgia | Emilie Le Fellic
For Fuck’s Sake
Magic is a gift for the lonely souls
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The Therapy Notebook
Tiny dancer we’ll find you a partner
About Today
Do You Remember
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The Language of Nostalgia | Emilie Le Fellic
I’m so mad to love you
Les printemps se suivent
Ticking Clocks
La fuite du sens
May the Fourth
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Once we were kids
Cold & Blue Intimacy I’ve always felt affected by the idea of time passing. Even as a child, I kept a diary, for fear memories should be lost one day (which I knew they would inevitably be). I drew family scenes, family places, and self-portraits. They were probably a way of recording the evolution of my personal sphere through time and experience. The first time I saw a Polaroid photograph I was swept away. Somehow, the dreamlike, outdated colors seemed to capture the very essence of nostalgia. It touched my very soul, and I knew from the start that Polaroid was going to be my way of expressing what I had to express. I bought my first Polaroid camera in 2007. But these are difficult beasts to tame - my first shots were imperfect, not well composed, and blurry. With digital photography, when you don’t like a shot you can just delete it. With a Polaroid, you can’t. If you’ve produced something you’re dissatisfied with, it stays. This made me very frustrated and often led to shots getting torn, ripped apart, and scribbled upon to try and hide the imperfections. I gradually realized that this process of manipulation, born out of failure, was actually an act of creation. It was giving a second life to an old object. And the process somehow brought me joy and satisfaction. So, whenever I felt lonely, stressed, or frustrated, I would grab my camera and be creative. I ended up using my camera everyday, like a drug. It became a part of me, a way of converting my negative energy into something positive, like therapy. I started to see the world around me with Polaroid eyes, in terms of frames, colors, and compositions. Now, each place I go, I envision as a Polaroid picture. I even often dream of shooting Polaroids. I feel it has become an extension of my self.
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What is at the heart of my Polaroid work is love – love for the medium itself, for the subjects I choose, and the people I’m sending a message to.
I never had an artistic project - never thought about why I was shooting and what themes I was addressing - I just did it, in the same way you eat, sleep, or wake up in the morning. When I tried to gather some of my pictures into a book, though, I noticed some consistency and recurrent themes. My work centers on the notion of intimacy. Not in an erotic way at all, but rather, the intimacy of the heart and its emotions. Many of my pictures are self-portraits expressing mostly loneliness, sadness, disappointment, and melancholy. I find it easier to capture the true soul of something, when that something is me. But whenever I take a picture of an object, a place or another person, the subject has to be something I truly care for and feel a particular emotion for. I am not very good at shooting things I do not know, because I don’t feel connected to them. The notion of intimacy is echoed in the techniques I use in my work – especially through the use of handwriting. I have always had a fondness for handwriting – mine, as well as others’.
As a teacher, I get to correct a lot of papers, and I am always amazed to see what a private thing handwriting is. I find it very touching to see someone’s handwriting for the first time – it gives access to something that is normally hidden, and often tells more about the person than the content of what is written. Handwriting is an essential component of my Polaroid work – which couldn’t actually exist without the material aspect of a Polaroid (it’s much more difficult to use it on digital, for instance). I began to use it to mainly hide some imperfections in the composition, but soon realized that it adds some kind of aesthetic value to a picture, as well as a very personal signature, the idea of which I like very much.
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The notion of intimacy is echoed in the techniques I use in my work – especially through the use of handwriting. I have always had a fondness for handwriting – mine, as well as others’. I also have a fondness for words, in themselves. I especially love the way words evoke mental images and random associations (that was actually the subject of my PhD thesis in linguistics). Whether it is in the picture itself or in its title, words and the messages they convey are always central to my work. They are most of the time very personal love messages addressed to someone in particular referred to as “you”, that anyone could interpret in their own way and create their own story around. They are also often references to song lyrics that mean a lot to me, or to poems, popular sayings, nursery rhymes – cultural things that are stored in the back of everyone’s mind and which are always related to the content of the picture, creating resonances and evocations of various atmospheres (music, words, images, personal memories), which might be described as poetical. Finally, another consistent thing in my work is the use of colors, which create a unity and a world of their own. To me, blue is the color of dreams, of memories. I always choose my subjects and overexpose my pictures so that they look a pale, soft, cold and dreamy vanilla and blue. The world then seems like a bubble of softness – like cotton - in which I feel protected. Marcel Proust wrote about “ce regard avec lequel, un jour de départ, on voudrait emporter un paysage qu’on va quitter pour toujours “ (Proust, Du côté de chez Swann), which means “this look with which, on a day of departure, you wish you could take away with you a landscape you’re going to leave forever.” I think on the whole, what is at the heart of my Polaroid work is love – love for the medium itself, for the subjects I choose, and the people I’m sending a message to. For me, photographing a subject is a way of cherishing, embracing and capturing it forever.
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The Language of Nostalgia | Emilie Le Fellic
Over a cup of coffee
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I wanna
A la fleur de l’age
In the Snow
Fading
Where is your heart
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An Eye For Formats | Juan Felipe Rubio
Juan Felipe Rubio
An Eye For Formats
Juan Felipe Rubio is a Colombian photographer born in 1976. His interest in photography started in his late teens when a neighbor who had a dark room at home taught him the techniques of both taking black and white pictures and developing them. Rubio soon bought a camera and would take it everywhere; photography became his hobby. He graduated with a degree in advertising and graphic design, and worked at web design agencies for almost 6 years. One day Rubio embarked on a trip in which he drove 10500 miles from his hometown in Colombia to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, documenting the trip with his first digital camera, a Nikon D70. This trip sparked a successful career as a photojournalist often published in Colombia’s most important printed media. Although his main interests are social issues, Rubio has always been keen on experimenting with photography and different formats and cameras. Rubio is still a very active analog photographer of 35mm, medium and large formats.
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Rubio has always been keen on experimenting with photography and different formats and cameras. Throughout his career he has worked on many portrait series, a couple of which have been exhibited at local galleries. He has also worked on nation-wide projects such as: La Ciudad Jamás Contada (The unspoken city) for Casa Editorial El Tiempo, and .CO Una Mirada Personal, a book about Colombia for a Spanish publisher, as well as Bogotá MMX, a book about Bogotá for the mayor’s office. He has also been awarded an honorable mention in 2006 at Bogotá’s Photo Marathon. Today, Rubio combines his job as a freelance photojournalist with Efeunodos, a successful wedding photojournalism business he operates with his wife. He is also working on a book about Santacruz del Islote, a remote and over populated island in the middle of the Caribbean and he is still working on different portrait series.
© All images courtesy of Juan Felipe Rubio www.sicoactiva.net
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An Eye For Formats | Juan Felipe Rubio
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An Eye For Formats | Juan Felipe Rubio
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Framing The Moment It is during these times of Internet social networks that photography has seen its peak. Everybody seems to have a camera in his or her pockets available to shoot at any time and photography is more widely used than ever. But the success of digital also means the decay of printed. On February 8th, 2008, Polaroid announced the unthinkable yet unavoidable: they were to abandon instant photography once and for all. The very product that made the brand world famous was being left behind, and many photographers and artists were in shock. It turned out that no matter how magical and beautiful the Polaroid was, it just couldn’t compete against the popularity and immediacy of digital cameras, which were everywhere and most consumers had already proven to prefer over Edwin Land’s mythical format.
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Polaroid cameras and film where perhaps one of the most important breakthrough of its time in photography. Later that year while attending a medium and large format course I came up with the idea for this series as part of a class assignment. I made a large cutout of the Polaroid picture frame and shot medium format portraits of my classmates holding it. After the first two rolls, many of my acquaintances started asking me to take their portraits too, so I took it more seriously and started bringing the frame with me everywhere I went. At first I only shot people I knew, but after a while I started shooting almost every person I crossed paths with that would agree to it. The frame turned out to be a great excuse to meet strangers and oddly enough, my subjects didn’t seem to feel uncomfortable when posing for me holding it. It was as if they felt the frame was the center of attention, rather than them. Every single person I photographed during the 6 months the project lasted, with no exception, recognized the shape of the frame as that of the Polaroid. Polaroid cameras and film where perhaps one of the most important breakthrough of its time in photography and gave a wide range of possibilities to consumers all over the world: from police mug shots to very complex collages such as Hockney’s. Fortunately, the people at The Impossible Project took over the factory and after a couple of years they have started producing film that might not be the same as what we knew, but is the only light at the end of the tunnel for many artists hungry for it.
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The title of the series is Ordinary Madness Polaroids, which refers to the insanity of hyper consumerism and how this may seem normal under the market laws. It is not a complaint about the loss of this iconic photographic medium, more than it is an invitation to think about the contradictions of the capitalist system, where the main goal of marketing departments is to detect, design and supply products for very specific needs, but every single decision is taken over the basis of whether a product is profitable or not. I find it ironic that when the return on investment is not reached, this approach to individuality ends with no sign of regret. Winter 2011 45
An Eye For Formats | Juan Felipe Rubio
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Finding A Lost History | Anthony R. Vizzari
Anthony Vizzari is a trained architect, photographer and artist, with a passion for urban archeology (an “archtographist”). A native of Connecticut, Vizzari began his creative pursuits at ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, and a Masters of Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, in 2005. His Masters thesis focused on the now defunct Technical Porcelain and China Ware Co. (TEPCO) factory and dumpsite in Richmond, California. His investigation studied how architecture can call attention to elements in the landscape that are ephemeral and fleeting; which he refers to as Lost History. These elements, cast-off into the San Francisco Bay as waste, emerge decades later as object-artifacts. No longer representing their true form or purpose, they take on new meaning in the cultural landscape. More about this project can been found at www.archiveoflosthistory.com.
Anthony R. Vizzari
Finding A Lost History
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Photography, a tool and artistic medium, preserves memory as an expressive cultural document.
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With newfound respect from established academic institutions, the silver-based snapshot has moved from the shoebox into the Museum.
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Vizzari is also the founder of the MoMP: the Museum of Mourning Photography & Memorial Practice (www.mourningphoto.com). The Museum of Mourning Photography is not intended for morbid fascination, but as an investigation into human ritual. The Museum’s focus is on how photography, a tool and artistic medium, preserves memory as an expressive cultural document. The mission at the Museum is to collect, showcase, preserve, and disseminate information pertaining to all aspects of Memorial Practice and Photography. The Museum is a resource for both the anthropologist and photographer alike. MoMP has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, as well as multiple publications and documentaries. MoMP has also worked with many artists, authors, researchers, and students in support of their academic and artistic investigations. In 2007, Vizzari established A&A Studios, Inc. (www.aastudioschicago.com), a multifaceted creative studio in Chicago. In addition to salvaging vintage photo booths, a dying medium, A&A Studios is currently working on a new project: The Gallery of Mundane Photography. The Gallery of Mundane Photography exhibits vernacular photography for public view, reference and sale. In the age of digital photography, early vernacular and/or amateur photography is finding new forums. With newfound respect from established academic institutions, the silver-based snapshot has moved from the shoebox into the Museum. It is the Gallery’s intent to record this shift, and provide a new online resource for the vernacular photo. For more, please visit www.anthonyvizzari.com.
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Finding A Lost History | Anthony R. Vizzari
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Finding A Lost History | Anthony R. Vizzari
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Polaroid Epitaphs Having a strong interest in historical narrative, as well as the vernacular image, Polaroid Epitaphs explore the “found” photo. As is typical in the vernacular photo trade, personal photo collections find their way to the market after their owner has departed. In many cases, the family will sell an entire estate, including the deceased’s personal photos. After trade through many hands, these photographs often lose their provenance; in effect they are orphaned. Their story is tragically lost, extinct; much like the current state of Polaroid film. The narrative behind these lost images has faded into obscurity. The only proof of their past existence is a far away grave marker, and a Polaroid melting in the flea market sun.
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After collecting my material, I reconstruct new narratives for these photographic orphans.
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For each piece, a defining narrative was formed. A succinct epitaph. The epitaphs provide insight into how each person, or thing, may have lived and died.
After collecting my material, I reconstruct new narratives for these photographic orphans. In a sense, I bring new life to that which has died, been lost, or extinct; a resurrection of sorts. The final image is not the process, but a result of discovery. The process involves digging and bargaining, scavenging, cutting and pasting; it is antiquarian mysticism. It is the fabrication of memory. Photos are lost, mixed and jumbled into shoeboxes or crates; their precise language has been confused. They make their way from attics and living rooms into parking lots and online auctions. At the flea market, the sellers of these orphaned stories barely understand the language. Their artifacts scream over the pavement and under the sun. The project includes 24 collages constructed from vernacular (found) Polaroids. The material was collected from New York, Chicago, and San Francisco area flea markets and estate sales. For each piece, a defining narrative was formed. A succinct epitaph. The epitaphs provide insight into how each person, or thing, may have lived and died. Through this process, stories emerge against a backdrop of emulsion, scotch-tape and typewriter ink. He who was once at war remembers. She, now divorced, is married again. Her name is… His name is… they find their own names, or, they find their faces scratched out, their world scratched out; reconstruction is not always pretty or kind. Intimacy is revealed in the fragments found and cut, remembering the 1/60th of a second when the shutter clicked. And the 90 seconds before the peel, before the shake, waiting to find out what might appear. © All images courtesy of Anthony Vizzari www.AnthonyVizzari.com
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Analog Intimacy | Jennifer Rowsom
Jennifer Rowsom
Analog Intimacy
Jennifer Rowsom has been taking great delight in making people feel comfortable in front of the camera for over a decade. She holds a diploma in photography from the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto. Using a variety of analog cameras and film stock, particularly Polaroid, Jennifer brings an intimacy to her portrayals of the world around her, capturing the beauty in people and details.
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Jennifer brings an intimacy to her portrayals of the world around her, capturing the beauty in people and details. On the rare occasion she doesn’t have multiple cameras dangling from her neck, Jennifer can be found scouring the thrift shops for vintage ephemera and party frocks, playing board games in her kitchen or snuggling up with a documentary, bloody Caesar in hand!
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Analog Intimacy | Jennifer Rowsom
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Happy Accidents Just like the characteristics of Polaroid, I feel that experimentation; unpredictability and happy accidents are important parts of the art-making process. Polaroid represents what I love most about art and photography. Digital photography can be too “perfect” at times. The images Soura Magazine has selected represent three (of the many) different methods of working with Polaroid materials. The first series, ‘Graffiti Alley’, was created using an SX-70 camera with expired Time Zero film. Rejecting the polished perfection seen so often in fashion editorials, the off-key colors and light leaks were to evoke a different era, a nod to the 1980’s New York City graffiti culture.
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Experimentation; unpredictability and happy accidents are important parts of the art-making process. The second series was created for a retail clothing shop with a vintage aesthetic. Polaroid 669 emulsion transfers on to watercolor paper were used for their unique one-of-a kind properties. Specifically to give off a nostalgic feeling of remnants of the past, reminding us of the time when buildings and the objects inside them were built to endure and the effort that was spent on the details.
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It is an alternate way of guiding the audience to reconnect with the past, and to contend with the passage of time. The third series utilizes Polaroid in a mixed media collage. I re-photographed family archival images on Polaroid Spectra film, peeled the film apart to scratch away at the emulsion and continued to layer the translucent images on top of one another along with paper cut-outs onto a paint splattered surface. It is an alternate way of guiding the audience to reconnect with the past, and to contend with the passage of time. © All images courtesy of Jennifer Rowsom www.JenniferRowsom.com
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Image Transfers | Mike Nourse
Mike Nourse
Image Transfers
Mike Nourse is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, and curator. Originally from Montreal he moved to Chicago to complete degrees at DePaul University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has lived in Chicago since the late1990s, working as a fine artist, teacher, program director, and curator.
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His work focuses on found objects, imagery from avant-garde filmmaking, and found footage from popular media outlets. Nourse’s video and transfer art have shown around the USA and internationally. His work has been covered by JPEG Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, L’Express Magazine, New York Times, and CBS Evening News. His Polaroid series, videos, and transfer works are explorations, using every day subjects, found media, and materials to ask questions about cultural identity. His work focuses on found objects, imagery from avant-garde filmmaking, and found footage from popular media outlets. For the past ten years he has been driven to respond to mass media and popular culture through his work. Mike Nourse compliments his art practice with teaching. As an educator Nourse has taught high school to graduatelevel university students. In addition, he has spent time as a program manager and director, overseeing studio and exhibition programs for Marwen, Digital Media Academy (at University of Chicago), Chicago Art Department, and currently for The Chicago Architecture Foundation.
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For the past ten years he has been driven to respond to mass media and popular culture through his work. In addition to learning, Nourse has also curated over 25 exhibitions, starting in 2001 with a show designed to explore Stanley Kubrick’s 2001; A Space Odyssey. His exhibitions are sometimes the result of programs taught at DePaul, SAIC, or Chicago Art Department, which he co-founded in 2003 as an informal art lab, a place to lead explorations in studio, exhibition, and learning practices for new and emerging artists. Nourse’s teen programs can be found at architecture.org and chicagoartdepartment.org, while his recent art can be found at mikenourse.com. © All images courtesy of Mike Nourse www.MikeNourse.com
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Image Transfers | Mike Nourse
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The Streets of Time The Polaroid experience is a universal one. People from all over the world have owned or used these cameras, waited in anticipation for the photos, and instantly shared the images. Do you remember the last time you saw a Polaroid picture? Chances are you didn’t think twice about the format, because it’s something you know. This is why we miss Polaroid, she is a valued friend who has been with us through thick and thin. Polaroid cameras were popular for the same reasons we love computers today, instant gratification.
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I understood modern economics and changing times, which could easily explain why Polaroid’s run as instant camera king was seemingly coming to an end.
Today, we expect quick service from restaurants, banks, and other service outlets, because we are used to the speed of exchange through the Internet. That sense of immediacy was paramount to the Polaroid. It’s hard to think that Polaroids are really no more. Towards the middle of 2008 I was searching for a way to eulogize Polaroid, which had recently announced that they were ceasing the production of film. Like many other Polaroid users, I was caught between two places. First, I couldn’t imagine a world without Polaroid cameras. Next, I understood modern economics and changing times, which could easily explain why Polaroid’s run as instant camera king was seemingly coming to an end. So I stood in the middle, an admirer of the tool, but understanding that its time had passed. At the time I would not have called myself a Polaroid fanatic, but when it comes to art, I often look for moments in history to address important issues, and use such opportunities to create a meaningful series. This felt like just such an opportunity. I saw the end of instant film as a challenge. How to memorialize a pop culture institution? How to speak to this while also building off of the Polaroid legacy of being quick, easy, fun, and clear? Like many of the best Polaroid projects, I started with subjects that were around me, close, and part of my urban landscape. I thought of death and trying to capture that. Old people? Graveyards? Visuals of dying or falling apart? These directions seemed too obvious. I didn’t have a clear vision until coming home one day. When I noticed a house address that reminded me of a date, I knew what I wanted to do. So I started to take pictures of years around my neighborhood, starting with 1937 (the year Polaroid was incorporated). For the first few days of shooting, it was fairly easy and painless, fun, and simple, not unlike the Polaroid itself. Other factors however, turned this quick and easy “fun” into a 3-month project. If you have ever been to Chicago, you know that the block system for street addresses works on a grid, and is simple to follow. Every block features addresses, which begin at 0. For example, the address numbers on a block with 30 houses, on the even side of the street, which begins at say
1900, will go to 1960. The next block does not immediately follow that number, but rather starts fresh at 2000. This allows for predictable block numbers, so that even newcomers to the city can navigate fairly easily. I found that while this system was good for predicting the city layout, it was bad for my Polaroid project. I aimed for the series to include dates from 1937 to 2008, however there are not many blocks with more than 35 houses on them, meaning I was only able to find a few numbers above 1970 in Chicago. I spent roughly six weeks on car, foot, and bike searching the entire city. I did find a couple of 1970s addresses, but after many weeks of work, I realized that Chicago would not be able to give me all of the numbers for this project. After exhausting every street option in Chicago, I realized that I had to travel to a different city. I’ve always needed reasons to visit New York City, and this was a good one. I went to the Big Apple in the spring of 2008 with a mild sense of direction, bad shoes and a bag full of 600 film packs. I was missing roughly 20 numbers, mostly between 1980 and 2000. I quickly figured out that the dates in question would most likely be south on Flatbush Avenue, and way up north in Harlem. In typical NYC style, I spent the weekend in my own world, meeting great people, puzzling many more, burning through two pairs of shoes, and finally finding my last date (1994) in Harlem, roughly two hours before my flight back to Chicago. I was hoping for an easier project when I started, something that wouldn’t take as much out of me. However maybe that was an important part of this work, the fact that it was grueling, much like the feeling of losing something. When I found the last number in NYC, I stopped, stood, and wondered. I knew I had finished the project, but after three months, part of me didn’t want to believe it. I had to sit on the curb and look at this number. How could it have taken so long? Was this really it? I took a couple of extra shots just to make sure that I had it right. I placed the pictures in my container, and made my way back home. Like the saying, all good things come to an end. Like the camera itself, my favorite art projects are simple ones. I aimed to memorialize the Polaroid era, and ended up with a series of images that represent the life of an icon in the photo industry. While individual images can be seen online, the finished piece hangs in my staircase, and houses all the dates from 1937 to 2008 inside of a vertical grid, much like the 600 film that I used. At some point I might change my mind, but for now I can’t bring myself to sell the piece or even show it. Maybe it’s because I don’t want Polaroid to be gone forever? I look at the piece almost every day, and it never ceases to make an impression, lift an emotion, or help me appreciate the life around me. Not unlike what Polaroid did for so many years. Winter 2011 61
The Smirking Camera | Andy Bloxham
Andy Bloxham
The Smirking Camera
Born and raised in a small Louisiana town, Andy Bloxham turned to his imagination for activity. This playful, creative approach to life extended to Andy’s adulthood, where it took form in photography, video, and writing.
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Bloxham’s photography centers around fictional situations and events, told through the slight hint of a smirking camera. Receiving an MFA in photography from Louisiana Tech University, his images have appeared throughout the world in numerous group and solo exhibitions, publications, and online media. Bloxham’s photography centers around fictional situations and events, told through the slight hint of a smirking camera. He is an assistant professor of photography at Cecil College, in North East, Maryland, and a member of the faculty at the Maine Media Workshops. © All images courtesy of Andy Bloxham www.AndyBloxham.com
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The Smirking Camera | Andy Bloxham
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A Tribute to Polaroid The two earliest Christmas presents I remember were a GI Joe aircraft carrier and a bicycle. But the two earliest Christmas presents that continue to impact my life were a typewriter and a Polaroid camera. To this day, I prefer to refer to myself as a storyteller above anything else. Both of these tools are used to accomplish this goal in life.
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I always ask the question of what is the essential aspect of that which I am drawn to, and how might I use the Polaroid image to frame this. This collection of Polaroid images started out as a random idea. In 2006, while experimenting during a fashion photo shoot, I thought it would be interesting to incorporate a few Polaroid images into a standard digital session. What if the instant photographs, the original source of photographic instant gratification, could be intertwined with a model to give a different perspective on photographic truth. The results weren’t that grand, but it caused me to think on the subject a little more while going on photography walks in the afternoons. Instead of using models, I would use this method for making landscape and other assorted static photographs, in a way that would still be making rather than taking images. Having a hard time simply pointing a camera and clicking, my innate desire to manipulate and fashion the content within my photograph extended to even objects as common as brick walls or the Eiffel Tower.
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The importance of each subject I raise the camera to must be questioned, because I am working with a medium nearing extinction. This method of photography has become my standard way to document events in my life, in addition to being my method of choice for the photographer-as-tourist photos. In making these images, I always ask the question of what is the essential aspect of that which I am drawn to, and how might I use the Polaroid image to frame this, perhaps in a quite literal manner. Often there is a story being told through the interplay of Polaroid and standard photography. In many of these images, they are my memories being documented. Midway through this project, Polaroid went out of business. These days, a pack of ten sheets becomes a treasure. The importance of each subject I raise the camera to must be questioned, because I am working with a medium nearing extinction. What originally started as a project to use my playful camera has become a tribute to this method of photography. Winter 2011 65
The Honesty of A Photo | Jenna Denlinger
Jenna Denlinger
The Honesty of A Photo
Jenna Denlinger lives and works in Elizabethtown Pennsylvania; right outside of the state capital. She attended Delaware College of Art and Design in Wilmington Delaware, and majored in fine art photography. Denliger admittedly declares that she does not use her photography schooling in her everyday work as much as she should. In her first year of school, Denlinger’s photography teacher gave her her first Polaroid land camera as a reward for cleaning out his office. She’d always been a fan of Polaroid; and has a large collection of type 600 film cameras, but was excited to dive into something different. She loves Polaroid because they have the convenience and excitement of instant photography that digital can bring, and the satisfaction of having your work in print. When Denlinger started exploring different film types, 669 quickly became her favorite. Emulsion transfers are one of her favorite things to do, and she’s always excited by the different ways the chemicals can affect the
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photo. Whether it is a streak when the chemicals are drawn across the photograph, the white space where the developer missed contact, the color tint due to the temperature, or the excess chemical smearing on the edge, all of which make each and every picture unique. Just like Polaroid images, no two people are the same. No person has the same story, and Denlinger loves trying to communicate that through film. Her favorite thing to photograph has always been people. They can drastically change an image, whether the tone or the message. She finds that the average person will agree to let you take their picture, as long as they don’t know you. Strangely, Denlinger feels like sometimes you get to know someone even better with your camera, more so than at a friendly lunch. Unlike people, photos can never lie, and Denlinger loves the honesty that they bring.
© All images courtesy of Jenna Denlinger www.flickr.com/photos/JennaDenlinger
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The Honesty of A Photo| Jenna Denlinger
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Confessions on Film People have to be the most interesting things in the world. Every person is different, with different lives, experiences, families, and emotions. We come into contact with one another every single day; both with people we know well, and people we don’t know at all; as well as people we only know a little of. The thing is, we don’t always know everyone as well as we think we do. People are masters of deception, whether it is for the purpose of being polite, or the fear of being rejected.
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I wanted to make the photos as personal as possible, and I figured that a person’s handwriting is almost as unique as their face. Everyone has a secret. I asked almost everyone I knew to tell me something about themselves that no one else did. Knowing my task was quite invasive; I was beyond surprised when people were so open with me. I was expecting things such as “I talk in my sleep” and “I’m afraid of spiders”; but I was blown away when people started using me as an outlet to let out some serious issues that they were hiding. Although I only convinced about ten percent of those who I asked to help me, I am forever grateful to them for being so brave. One of the most challenging parts of this series was how I was going to communicate my subjects’ confessions. I wanted to make the photos as personal as possible, and I figured that a person’s handwriting is almost as unique as their face. I got to use my favorite medium of photography as well. I used the
Polaroids as a way of making it feel like they were showing me a secret, instead of just telling one. After all, photography is a visual expression, and I wanted them to experience that with me. In fear of muting the secrets, I wanted to make sure the picture did not give the viewer too many things to look at. I chose black and white instead of color, so that the white edge of the Polaroid would stand out and catch the viewer’s eye. I tried to focus mostly on the words, and have the setting and person come as an afterthought. The Polaroids gave me the perfect size to play with; they are the focused part of the photo, and only make up about twenty percent of the whole image. I tried putting the subject in the setting of their secret, and sometimes I just let it be neutral. I think both scenarios worked, and I don’t really prefer one to the other.
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Everyone you know is hiding something. It may be something silly, or it may be something hurtful or shameful. Although you do not know the people in my photographs, I hope you take them to heart. Everyone you know is hiding something. It may be something silly, or it may be something hurtful or shameful. If you would do the same thing as myself, and ask everyone you love to share something that they haven’t, you may learn nothing, or you may learn a lot. You may also learn that we are all a lot more similar than we think; and we could all afford to learn a little more about each other. So, what is your secret?
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Polaroid Manipulation ID-UV | David Salinas Interview
David Salinas
Polaroid Manipulation ID-UV
Hand manipulating Polaroid’s ID-UV is nothing new. I remember seeing those dreamy pack film photographs all the way back in the early eighties when I was discovering different forms of abstract photography as a student. It wasn’t until almost twenty years later that I would begin my own series of hand manipulated Polaroid photographs. Having never really developed as a painter, I fell back on my lingering interest in photography. Determined to find a link between the two, I started buying Polaroid ID-UV film. This film was known for its gushy emulsion & its color shifting properties while in the developing stages. Once the photograph is pulled from the camera, there lies a small window of manipulating opportunity. And with the remaining stock of this film all but gone, I will explain my techniques in this endangered art form. I like to start with photographing subjects that I like and keep them as the focal point rather than having the whole print be an abstract painting. So my favorite way to photograph is to ride around in the comforts of my car searching for subjects in a spontaneous manner. If you are doing this during the winter months the temperature may not be ideal for the proper development of pack film. I like to have the heater from my car on to use as part of my process. When I finally find something worthy of a print, I wait to pull the print from the camera until I am in my car. I like to carry a smooth cutting board to use as my flat surface for the print to be placed on. Keep in mind that any surface that you use that has some texture may transfer that same texture to your print. After pulling the print from the camera I make sure its flat against the smooth cutting board and begin using my index, middle, and ring finger to apply a gentle even rubbing pressure all over the print. On some of my photographs that I have used this technique, you can actually see the outlines and pressure points from my fingers.
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My favorite way to photograph is to ride around in the comforts of my car searching for subjects in a spontaneous manner.
Depending on the effect that I want, I usually give more pressure on the edges to make sure the subject gets less effected than the other areas. This is where you have to be very careful as to not separate the negative from the print itself. By starting with light pressure and slowly 70 Soura Issue 31
working up the pressure in the areas that I want effected. I keep this motion going in even, long, and random strokes the entire duration of the developing time of the print. Just keep in mind the more pressure you put on the film the greater the effect will be. Being that all the ID-UV I use is long expired I have to make sure the temperature is nice and warm so the emulsion will be easier to move around. I like to blast my car heater while I do this and give the unpeeled print some close up time with the vent of the heater for about twenty seconds after I have finished the rubdown process. I find it is easier to work with the emulsion at warmer temperatures and it makes the print easier to separate from the negative. During the summer I don’t have to worry about the print staying warm during development because of the amazing Texas heat. As I shoot during the winter months, this step is essential for getting that watery look. I peel the negative from the print very slowly. I like to start at one corner and work my way diagonally all the way to the opposite end. From time to time you get blotchy parts of emulsion on the film. I like to press the print and negative back together and give it a couple of circular smoothing out swirls with my fingers to make sure it’s not as blotchy.
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Being that all the ID-UV I use is long expired I have to make sure the temperature is nice and warm so the emulsion will be easier to move around. I like to scan my prints with the peel on letting it be well known that this is the real deal pack film print. Not to mention the messy borders are nice and it’s more of personal preference. But keep in mind some of these chemicals are very old and are somewhat unpredictable. Not to mention they are toxic and will stain your clothes. So after the peel is done and the print is separated from the negative, I lay them flat to dry. Make sure they are not in an area where dust may settle on them during the drying stages. Getting the desired look I was going for would take me about a packs worth of film. With the resurrection of 600 film, there has been a rising interest in shooting Polaroid films again. As stock of ID-UV is becoming extremely rare, I feel very fortunate to have been able to take advantage of this film’s amazing abilities. Capturing one of a kind small hand painted photographs, bridging the gap between painting and photography.
High Life
Knife
Polaroid Land Camera
Polaroid Land Camera
Paint Brushes Winter 2011  71
Polaroid Manipulation ID-UV | David Salinas Interview
Lawn Chair Division
Futuro
Day of the Woman
Telescope
Polaroid Jet
Blown
Polaroid Land Camera
Canary Club
My Favorite Scarf
Lime Chevelle
Gas Pumps
Vomit Machines
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David Salinas tells Soura Magazine about himself, his work and his love of Polaroid photo-manipulation. How did you become interested in photography? I can remember being first interested in photography when i was a teenager. I just remember thinking, “I could learn that”. And slowly over the years I just became more serious about it. Not necessarily as a career or anything, more like something I could possibly be really good at. Coming from producing music and being in bands, i just applied the same love for lo-fi sounds into images. It was easy to translate images from sounds. Tell us briefly about your background, where you grew up, your education… I grew up in Baytown. It’s along the gulf coast of Texas. The whole town is basically chemical & oil refineries. I just love all the ambient sounds the chemical plants would make that would reverberate through the night. It was a constant drone of steam and metallic sounds. I have no formal education in the way of photography. People sometimes comment on my photographs by saying, “Nice rule of thirds”. To be completely honest, I don’t know what the hell that means, nor do I care. I work in a professional camera shop now, so my knowledge has vastly improved on the technical aspects of cameras in general. As far as photography theory and fundamentals go, I try not to have any outside source of influence. My influences come from music and friends. I seriously can’t name any famous photographers, All my favorites are close friends.
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With the death of ID-UV, nothing has sparked my interest in the way that particular film has done. What first sparked your interest in Polaroid ID-UV film? Why did you start experimenting with it? I first saw manipulated Polaroids when I was maybe thirteen years old. When I was younger I had always wanted to be a painter. Since I never really developed my skills as a painter I wanted to get a painted look in my photography. I always loved vivid colors and abstract images in photography. Most of the photos I was used to seeing were all black and white images. I just knew I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted a “painted” feeling to my photographs. Polaroid ID-UV is one of the only films that allow you to manipulate it when it’s in its developing stage. I love the results ID-UV gives me. It used to be readily available, but i think it’s all but gone for now. I feel fortunate to have shot as many packs of it as i did. It gave me what i was looking for. Do you work exclusively with Polaroid manipulation? Or are there other forms of photography you work in? It’s been a long time since I shot any instant film. With the death of ID-UV, nothing has sparked my interest in
the way that particular film has done. I do shoot instant film on my Land camera on occasion. My main camera is a Canon F-1, so I have been shooting and developing my own film for a while now. I also love to shoot 120 on my Holga. Having control over the developing and shooting has really filled the void ID-UV has left. I love experimenting with the chemistry of developing time and temperature. By doing that you have great control over your images. I shoot almost exclusively in color film. In fact, I think I have only shot less than ten rolls of black and white film that remain unprocessed. I just love taking color and manipulating it. Although I don’t write down “recipes” on developing times & temperatures for my chemistry, I try to do it a little different every time I develop. I have friends that are always trying to get me to be more consistent in my developing techniques. I like the fact that it’s hard to duplicate a certain feel without directions or recipes. It’s a roll of the dice. I love surprises!
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Since I never really developed my skills as a painter I wanted to get a painted look in my photography. I always loved vivid colors and abstract images in photography.
Have your Polaroid manipulations been published and/or exhibited? If so where and when? And how was the work received? My Polaroid images have been featured in several places, mostly on online blogs. The Impossible Project used some of my photos to try and sell their Holga Instant Backs. People seem to be pretty receptive to what I am doing. It’s always nice to have acceptance and validation to something you put so much into. What do you think of the Polaroid rebirth currently taking place among many photographers, and since The Impossible Project began reviving the art form? I think right before The Impossible Project launched their rebirth of 600 film is when I was already done shooting the series of ID-UV photographs. I’m certainly not saying I was shooting instant all along; I was shooting it out of total laziness. When I bought my Holga I got the instant back for it so I could get prints done instantly. I had very little knowledge of developing and shooting regular film. But I love what The Impossible Project is doing. It has sparked a new generation of instant film users. The younger generation can see what it’s like to shoot instant films. Will you continue working with Polaroid ID-UV film? Or have you moved on to something new? Unless I happen to find a ton of ID-UV film somewhere I think I’m done. My interest has moved on to 35mm & 120 film formats. I still love shooting Fuji instant in my Land camera!
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Book Review | [Snapshots] Lost in Learning 1
Burlem spent years lugging around 35mms, SLRs, and Polas. Despite his love for the Polaroid camera, he stumbled upon a less bulky alternative that drew on his passion for Polaroid. Now often referred to as an iPhoneographer, Burlem enjoys capturing moments on his iPhone and transforming them into fauxlaroids, recreating a feeling of the past and is an avid user of the classic Polarize application on his iPhone. Like many of us, Burlem loves the spontaneity and the candidness that iPhoneography provides.
[Snapshots] 1 By Photographer Matthew Burlem Snapshots 1 by photographer Matthew Burlem is a collection of photos taken on Burlem’s various travels and in his home city of London. What sets the work in this book apart is the fact that all photos were snapped on his iPhone and processed through an application that mimics the Polaroid effect. Despite the technological advancements in digital photography, Polaroid photography remains a timeless classic that even the most advanced technology tries to emulate: as is the case with Burlem’s recreation of Polaroid images through his iPhone. This book is a collection of some of his flickr images taken throughout the whole of 2009 and is intended as a visual blog of things that have caught his eye throughout the year. © All images courtesy of Matthew Burlem www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1134524 www.BurlemPhoto.com
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Burlem had for the most part always relied on his Nikon camera when he was out and about in London and when he travelled. His use of his phone camera was restricted to reference images of things he might come across in shops that he liked; he never really considered it “photography”. When he acquired his iPhone he still treated the phone camera in the same manner, as a tool to take the odd snap shot. That was until Burlem discovered the multitude of photography applications available to him with the iPhone. This meant that “this fairly limited hardware could now be used for much more creative purposes than camera phones I’d had before and it meant that I could create something interesting whenever and wherever I wanted,” says Burlem.
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This book is intended as a visual blog of things that have caught his eye throughout the year.
“The turning point came when I found the Polarize application,” says the artist, “which basically mimics an instant Polaroid, which sounds terrible but works very well, and I found that it gave such a lovely mood and style to my photographs. I couldn’t stop taking pictures with it after that and I was taking so many pictures I would never have captured with an SLR or even a compact camera, and especially not an actual instant Polaroid camera.” These images were finally accumulated in his first solo hardcover 160 page book Snapshots 1. Burlem plans to make it an annual tradition of publishing his iPhone fauxlaroids once a year as a yearly review of what had caught his attention that year. “I’ve had a lot of positive response from the iPhoneography community, mainly on Flickr and Tumblr, and it’s nice to be part of a group like that!” says Burlem.
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Burlem spent years lugging around 35mms, SLRs, and Polas… he stumbled upon a less bulky alternative that drew on his passion for Polaroid.
The nostalgic effect of the images in Snapshots 1 pays homage to a retro style of photography that has recently been revived thanks to initiatives like The Impossible Project that has taken to the task of remanufacturing Polaroid film, among other activities, (www. theimpossibleproject.com). For more on Matthew Burlem’s work please visit www.burlemphoto.com, www.mattburlem.tumblr.com, and www.flickr.com/photos/matthewburlem.
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Book Review | [Snapshots] 1
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The photographs in my book reflect a growing popularity for digital photography done in a classic, old-school style, as people embrace the aesthetic qualities of these images and the feelings they evoke.
Matthew Burlem
The Fauxlaroid Maker
UK photographer Matthew Burlem, currently living in South London, has a degree in Photography acquired in 1995 from Blackpool College. Since then, Burlem has worked as an assistant-photographer to many advertising and editorial photographers in London, both in the studio and on location. Working as an assistant-photographer for several years taught Burlem about the real-world business side of photography and constantly developing and refining new skills to use in his own work. During this time, Burlem gradually became more and more involved in the retouching side of things and developed his skills in Photoshop, bringing his photographic experience and ‘eye’ to this area of work. Now Burlem works mainly as a Creative Digital Retoucher for a range of clients including advertising agencies, design agencies and TV companies, such as the BBC. Burlem still does photography for himself and the occasional small commission and is always looking to raise his profile as a photographer using sites such as Flickr and Tumblr. This allows him to show his work to people all over the world and interact with other photographers and gain feedback from them about his work. Burlem admittedly used to be very still-life based in his photography when he had access to large format cameras such as 5x4 and 10x8, and professional studio equipment. At that time he was fascinated by how inanimate objects could appear to take on ‘living’ qualities if observed in a certain way, almost like an alternative reality, such as a pair of pliers becoming a fish, or a hammer being a human. Burlem became very involved in Surrealism and the philosophy behind the ideas of artists such as Rene Magritte and Giorgio de Chirico and how they saw the world not just for what’s on the surface of our perception, but what could be lurking underneath it too. He was quite struck by the feelings of mystery and melancholy in much of their work. In recent years, however, the limited resources available to Burlem and the fact that he has been lucky enough to travel to some interesting countries, meant that as well as still life images, his work has now shifted more towards people & places. With the freedom of digital 35mm and his iPhone, he can now be much more spontaneous in what he shoots, whilst still being influenced by the control and disciplines he developed with studio photography, and the ideas and philosophies he explored earlier on, so he still subconsciously brings these to whatever he shoots.
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Book Review | The Polaroid Book
TASCHEN Releases
The Polaroid Book In existence for over 50 years, the Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest collection of Polaroid images in the world. Begun by Polaroid founder Edwin Land and photographer Ansel Adams, the collection now includes images by hundreds of photographers throughout the world and contains important pieces by artists such as David Hockney, Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, and Robert Rauschenberg.
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A survey of this remarkable collection pays tribute to a medium that defies the digital age and remains a favorite among artists for its quirky look and instantly gratifying, one-of-kind images. A survey of this remarkable collection pays tribute to a medium that defies the digital age and remains a favorite among artists for its quirky look and instantly gratifying, one-of-kind images. The Polaroid Book includes over 400 works from the Polaroid Collections, an essay by Polaroid’s Barbara Hitchcock illuminating the beginnings and history of the collection, and a technical reference section featuring the various types of Polaroid cameras
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In existence for over 50 years, the Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest collection of Polaroid images in the world.
The book’s author Barbara Hitchcock is the director of cultural affairs for the Polaroid Corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts. She acquires fine art photographs for Polaroid and is responsible for managing its traveling exhibitions and multi-million dollar art collections. She has been the curator of several national exhibitions and currently serves on the Photography Collection Committee of Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge. The book’s editor California-native Steve Crist’s TASCHEN titles include André de Dienes’s Marilyn, William Claxton’s Steve McQueen, and The Polaroid Book.
Philippe Halsman
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The Polaroid Book is published by TASCHEN and available at www.taschen.com.
Andy Warhol
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Book Review | The Polaroid Book
Masahisa Fukase
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Chuck Close
Winter 2011  81
Special Feature |The
Project
The
Project
How The Impossible Was First Achieved
The Impossible project was founded in October of 2008 by 3 individuals with diverse backgrounds, all of whom came together to marry art and business and make the impossible, possible. The humble beginnings of the Impossible Project saw 10 former Polaroid employees come together driven by the desire to fulfill the same impossible dream. According to the Impossible Project website, www.theimpossibleproject.com, every one of the 10 original team members, “has a long time of expertise in the field of instant film production - more than 500 years accumulated experience and knowledge. Without their work and support the Impossible Project would not have had the slightest chance to make the Impossible possible.” Today, the Impossible Project team has grown to 25 employees. It took André Bosman, the founder and COO of the Impossible Project, 2 beers and 2 hours with co-founder and CMO Dr. Florian Kaps at a closing event of a Polaroid factory to come up with the idea of the Impossible Project. A former Polaroid employee, Bosman began as a product and process engineer at Polaroid in 1980, and quickly made his ascent up the ranks in the company. “Among his achievements at Polaroid are the creation of many specialty films like: Pre-exposure film, Logo film, Printed mask and dark slide, Lottery film, TZ blend film, TZ artistic and Spectra Image Soft tone.” Kaps’s journey with analog photography began in 2001 as manager of the Lomographic Society. His involvement with the Impossible Project was driven by a reactionary passion against digital photography and a pure love for analog photography. The 3rd co-founder and CFO of the Impossible Project is Marwan Saba who hails from an entirely different professional background. As a former tax accountant and auditor at Coopers & Lybrand, Saba made the move to Pepsi-Cola International as financial controller. Saba has been successfully initiating up and developing start-ups since 1992, he has also “raised and co-raised a total of approx. 50 million Euros in VC- and PE-funding; and has handled a number of M&A transactions and exits successfully.”
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Impossible‘s passionate mission is to start writing a completely new chapter in the history of Photography.
The first item on the Impossible team’s agenda back in October 2008 was to save the last Polaroid production plant for integral instant film. The plant, located in Enschede, Netherlands, was indeed rescued from extinction, and immediately set out to invent and produce innovative instant film materials for traditional Polaroid cameras. By 2010, the Impossible project had, “saved analog instant photography from extinction by releasing various, brand new and unique instant films,” according to the website. By doing so, the project has prevented more than 300,000,000 Polaroid cameras from becoming obsolete.
Mission Impossible
The Impossible Project had a seemingly impossible mission ahead of them: now that the original Polaroid color dyes were no longer in production, they would have to start with virtually nothing. And so they made it their task to create a totally new photographic instant system, and spent about a year conducting thousands of experiments to that end. That year bore fruit in the form of a brand new Impossible
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instant film system: the Impossible Silver Shade Film. “In April 2010 Impossible released the first line of a new, monochrome film. Based on Impossible’s new Silver Shade system, this unique new monochrome system contains 29 new layers as well as 13 new chemicals and forms the basis of all our future products,” according to the website. The Silver Shade films available in the market are: PX 100 Silver Shade for Polaroid SX 60 cameras, PX 600 Silver Shade for Polaroid 600 cameras and PZ 600 Silver Shade for the wide format in Polaroid Image/Spectra 1200 cameras.
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The Impossible Project had a seemingly impossible mission ahead of them: now that the original Polaroid color dyes were no longer in production, they would have to start with virtually nothing.
But the Impossible team did not stop there, 3 months later in July 2010; the Impossible Color Shade Film was released. Skeptics doubted that this could be accomplished given that the instant color system is highly complex. “PX 70 Color Shade FF is the first meteoric product of Impossible’s new and rapidly expanding Color Shade universe, compatible with Polaroid SX 70 as well as 600 camera models.
Impossible Art, Impossible Artists
“Impossible‘s passionate mission is to start writing a completely new chapter in the history of Photography,” is the declaration on the website, a history that began in the 1960s with Edwin Land, the inventor of analog instant photography. World-renowned photographic artist Ansel Adams took Land under his wings and supported his mission to provide leading contemporary photographic artists with his instant film materials and collect their resultant artworks. This was referred to as the now famous Polaroid Collection. The Impossible Collection was founded with the reinvention of Polaroid to celebrate the rebirth of analog instant film. This movement achieved the impossible by creating an artistic arena for artists and photographers to explore this impossible art form.
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The first item on the Impossible team’s agenda back in October 2008 was to save the last Polaroid production plant for integral instant film.
The Impossible Collection was developed to “build a new and growing archive of contemporary analog instant photography and artworks.” The collection features work made on the new instant film materials by international artists and photographers. “These close co-operations do not only allow Impossible a constant learning about its film materials in close collaboration with the people using it, but they also reveal the potential of the films by collecting and presenting a growing collection of the most interesting, analog photographic works of all times.” © All images courtesy of the mentioned artists and The Impossible Project www.The-Impossible-Project.com
Ani Asvazadurian
Anne Bowerman
AurĂŠlien Dumont
Beppe Bolchi
Boris Zuliani
Claire B.
Emilie Le Fellic
Filippo Centenari
Grant Hamilton
Heather Champ
Jake Chessum
Jeff Hutton
Jessica Hibbard
Laura A. Watt
Richard Bevan
Simone Frignani
Winter 2011  85
Special Events |Facing The
Facing The On December 16th Impossible unveiled its new exhibition at the Impossible Project Space in New York City: ‘Facing The Impossible’, running until February 28th. Facing The Impossible is an artistic review and outcome of The Impossible Project’s ambitions during the last two years. When Impossible embarked on its mission to bring analog instant photography back, photographers worldwide were facing the extinction of a legendary medium. But Impossible faced all challenges and developmental problems and has produced new instant films for Vintage Polaroid cameras.
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Impossible faced all challenges and developmental problems and has produced new instant films for Vintage Polaroid cameras.
Patrick Winfield
The portrait series ‘Facing The Impossible’ celebrates the return of analog cameras and faces the impossible possibilities of analog instant photography today - in the form of portraits. Since the introduction of the first Polaroid cameras in 1948, portraits have been an extremely popular and practical use of analog instant film. Not only did Andy Warhol, Robert Mappelthorpe, Chuck Close and Lucas Samaras portray themselves and their contemporaries, but modeling agencies, artists, families, party people, parents and pet owners also instantly captured memories with a Polaroid camera. The directness and instantness of analog instant film in portrait photography is an easy metaphor for the instant and direct connection that human beings discover every single day – both with the people around them as well as with themselves.
The Gentleman Amateur
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Since the introduction of the first Polaroid cameras in 1948, portraits have been an extremely popular and practical use of analog instant film. For ‘Facing The Impossible’ the following photographers have interpreted the artistic, historic, social and connective elements of the Portrait theme on Impossible PX 600 Silver Shade UV+ and PX 70 Color Shade PUSH! Film: Adam Goldberg, Adarsha Benjamin, Chloe Aftel, Irène Nam, Jen Altman, Lou O’Bedlam, Mikael Kennedy, Patrick Winfield, Rommel Pecson, The Gentlemen Amateur, Thibault Tourmente, and Tim Mantoani. © All images courtesy of the above-mentioned artists and The Impossible Project www.The-Impossible-Project.com
86 Soura Issue 31
Rommel Pecson
Tim Mantoani
Thibault Tourmente
Tim Mantoani
Rommel Pecson
Patrick Winfield
Rommel Pecson
Tim Mantoani
Chloe Aftel
Patrick Winfield
Thibault Tourmente Winter 2011  87
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