Last Polaroids

I attended my 30th High School reunion this weekend. While the reunion was being planned, I'd volunteered to

photograph my classmates because I think they're interesting people and deserve to be remembered by more than a

single panoramic photo. As the date approached, Polaroid announced that they were getting out of the instant

film business. My class was born (mostly) in 1960; Polaroid introduced pack film in 1963. So we're the kids in

the early Polaroid photos; we're also maybe last generation which thinks of photographs as physical objects

rather than "images" - our kids won't understand why we answered "the pictures" when asked what we'd save first

in a house fire (they know the photo.net and flickr databases aren't harmed when a house burns).

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After thinking about it for a while, I ordered some of the last stock of 4x5 type 56 (100 ISO sepia) Polaroid

film, and took it, along with my 4x5 monorail camera and an 11" f/4 Wollensak Verito variable soft-focus lens in

a Studio shutter to the reunion.

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At the reunion I told my classmates about the discontinuation of Polaroid, and offered to take a Polaroid photo

of anyone who wanted one - probably as the last Polaroid photo they'd ever get of themselves.

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The idea was a hit, and I took 70 photos in a little over 2 hours; I shot them at f/8 (to keep a little

soft-focus effect) and at shutter speeds varying between about half a second and about three seconds, depending

on subject and my mood and coordination. I rephotographed the polaroids with a Leica M8 and 50mm f/2 Collapsible

Summicron-M lens fitted into a BOWUM copystand, and gave the originals to the subjects. The digital photos show

various artifacts associated with my not having time to clean the glass I was using to keep the photos flat, and

with reflections and shadows arising from my use of room light instead of copystand lights to illuminate the

Polaroids. But I like the irony of the digital versions being grubbier than the originals - it makes them a

little more "thing-like". I also altered the color of the digital copies of the photos to make the sepia tone

less pronounced than it is in type 56 film in the real world.

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Clicking the picture below takes you to the whole set at flickr; if you want to see a slideshow on black there's

a "slideshow" button at upper right when you're looking at the set.

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<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakley/sets/72157606407621272/" rel="nofollow"><img

src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3028/2708424181_18b787e44d.jpg"></a></center>

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I learned a few things doing this; first, low light is good when you're using a Studio shutter - it makes

exposure times longer so the variability introduced by manually opening and closing the shutter while counting

seconds is less critical. Second, a ballhead is the WRONG support for a monorail camera. I'll use my three-axis

head next time. In the event, I mostly resorted to picking the camera and tripod up and moving it around as a

rigid mass. Third, I need a tripod whose legs have a better intermediate spread setting. The narrow spread was

too narrow, and the wide spread was too low. Fourth, Polaroid is INCREDIBLY efficient. I could not have taken a

picture every 2 minutes with 4x5 film without a seriously large collection of film holders, and the processing

would have taken forever. Neither digital nor film is really an adequate replacement for Polaroid. Fifth, (not

a new lesson but a reminder) the Verito is a wonderful lens. Sixth, rephotographing is an art unto itself, and

one I'm not very good at.

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But even with all these lessons, I'm extremely happy with the results. I hope you like them too.

That's a pretty remarkable piece of work! Well done!

I note that the moderator has changed the title of the thread; that's fine, but note that I titled the project "The Last Polaroid" anticipating that for each subject that's what it would be.