Cape Cod

Please see my folder of (more) Polaroid Spectra shots. Thanks.

This is real great nostalgia stuff

Great! I love poloroids and their colors. I like this look. (7/7)

I am going to look for my poloroids.

 

 

Brian your polaroid portfolio is really great, I feel like I know you! and there's something about polaroid that I really love, i think it's that it can't be reproduced, like a painting, it's one of a kind. : )

I love the colour hues in here. It is like something rescued from a dusty family pictures album, yet goes with this contemporary trend of appreciating found, anonymous photographic work. Putting this shot in the true context of you body of work, only tells us viewers about your top abilities for shooting and editing.

This is really outstanding in so many ways. It appears totally uncontrived and yet it is nearly flawless in composition. This is everything an advertizing agency would want in order to evoke strong emotions and to hopefully make you want to buy their products. Clothing retailers try hard to simulate these spontanious moments but often fail. I love the color, the rusty car and the dog taking over the driving seat. So cool in every aspect.

Just discovered your work. This is a fantastic shot. Excellent colors and composition. I love the diagonal formed by the subjects' heads.

Another timeless beach shot. Why do I keep wanting to say that? Maybe it's the 'nostalgia filter' you have on your camera. It's hard to resist. My favorite detail is the kid petting the dog.

Very painterly ... but real, too. Nice. Like the dog's perspective; he must be getting hungry. :)

This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest. It is simply an image that the Elves found interesting and worthy of discussion. Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Site Feedback forum.

Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having this forum. We have this forum because future visitors might be interested in learning more about the pictures. They browsed the gallery, found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved?

So, when contributing to this thread, please keep the above in mind. Address the strengths, the shortcomings of the image. It's not good enough to like it, you should spend some time trying to put into words why that is the case. Equally so if you don't like it, or if you can't quite make up your mind.

Let's make sure this forum is a wonderful learning resource for future photographers!

Thank you and enjoy!

The color and quality of Polaroids always gives such an immediate moment in time feeling to them but your almost kitsch style gives them an older than the dates might suggest. The perfect media to translate this genre for this effect. Refreshingly artistic work.

I like this photo from a strictly sentimental point of view, as I am sure many others on this site do. I wonder what some of the younger viewers have to say about this?? I have a feeling that the younger generation that has no emotional ties to the Polaroid format might not enjoy this image as much as the rest of us.

Hi Brian, What a wonderful photograph. Love that special look of polaroids, those colors. A great family shot during a day at the beach. The dog is great! With digital are we deleting some of these great shots?

Is this Eggleston-like or like all the other unremarkable Polaroid snapshots of middle-class American family life and what is the difference? I am skeptical of comments that say how good this is, how they love Polaroids, or they love the kid petting the dog, or they love the color without really saying anything substantive in a critical sense. I love Provia 100 but that does not make a Provia slide a good photograph. And I love beautiful women but a picture of a beautiful woman is not necessarily a good photograph. Neither the medium nor the subject make a good photograph to me. I don't understand "criticism" calling out the contents of the photo (the car, the kids, the dog, the beach) and then exclaiming they are great as if it was a conclusion supported by evidence. Why are they great?

1988!... Looks much older to me, I would say end of the sixties; the mood, the look, the car style, the beach (un-polluted & un-populated) even the sun appears brighter.

The time seems to have come over the colour too, past and warm.

May be I associate my own memories to it, and that the extraordinary power of this family style picture. Not my family but yet I almost feel I was there.

And Yes a classic, that probably many people think they could have taken ... so what, isn't-it the case of most pictures posted here?

Here I am, 75 years old, and I see nothing classic about this photo. Nothing at all. How did I miss this era? I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

 

First, the photo lists to the right. I'm afraid the free standing boy may tip over forward.

 

Second, the color is much too warm.

 

Third, it's a family snapshot. I would expect more artistic stuff on this page.

 

Fourth, along the left edge is a vertical imperfection the entire length of the photograph.

 

Not my cup of tea, thank you.

 

Willie the Cropper

It's not my family.

Rich slice of life shot, nicely composed to emphasize the boy's gaze, but to keep lots of other interests going at the same time. Love the dog.

 

I'll confess - the washed out yet saturated colors of the polaroid aren't always my favorites. But for this family on this beach, they work.

cool snap, Brian. Your framing, use of color and light is excellent. And you have a great eye for interesting moments -- you're da man of the oridinary. You dig life, and i dig what you are tryin' to say. It's beautiful.

By the way, I note that the time of day and place this was taken, with the hard shadows and light, would have been tough to manuever for most film -- the polaroid does better than expected in my mind. I'll confess to only shooting polaroid when I'm setting up a large format shot, never as an intended keeper - does anyone know if this wide range is a consistent characteristic of spectra?

I have found all Polaroid film to be narrow in latitude and hyper sensitive to temperature. Spectra maybe a little better than most but still easy to get blue when you want red and vice versa.

Keep it warm and use the flash; in this case turned so it's below the lens.

Well, it's about time some sort of Polaroid work got some notice on this site.

Is it particularly "Eggleston-like?" No, not really. It kind of doesn't have the forethought that Eggleston put into his work. Is it a simple family snapshot? Yeah, probably. Unless the photographer is seriously into image transfers and other esoteric work with this type of Polaroid film, I think most photos of this type fall into the spur-of-the-moment-shot category. I don't think this is a deliberate kitsch style, either. Most shots like this are sorta kitschy, simply because they're simple and made with inexpensive cameras with ultra cheap lenses...sometimes plastic lenses.

I think something basic is being overlooked regarding this photo. My thinking is that if you made this shot with a more expensive camera, you'd have to do all sorts of bracketing and fooling around with shutter speeds, aperture, and exposure to get this particular look to the colors. That, or you'd have to do some fooling around with it in Photoshop.

So I think rather than spending a lot of discussion pointing out this photograph's "faults," we should accept it for what it is. Simple shots like this often become treasured family things (I won't say "heirlooms"), simply because they show us as we really were at a certain time in our lives. It is what it is.

So I like this for its simplicity and sense of time, and for once, I agree with the choice made by the elves.

I agree with Dennis Dixson earlier comment on this photo, exactly. This is indeed the perfect snapshot-looking picture that would allow many ads agencies to get their message accross. The pola-look, the "off" colors, and all its imperfections contribute to its perfection. The more one will criticize the snapshot-quality of this, the more he will actually justify the photographer's choices...:-)) Excellent photo, so natural and unprepared, and to prepare an unprepared-looking photo is the toughest thing I know of in photography. Therefore my question: was this set up ?

Just to quote Michael Raddatz words from portfolio page:

 

"Certainly can see why Polaroid has it's place in photography. These are wonderful!"

So you like washed out oversaturated images with bad print quality. To use this as a

criteria for deciding an image is good/great is dodgy to say the least.

 

The image has novelty value when compared to most other images here but that is all. If

this image was taken with film or digital it would not be here.

 

So is the light or composition or subjects special. NO.

 

This just goes to the old walnut ' everything is art' but what we should concern ourselves

with is it great art or at least above average. I do not rate it as even average.