The Plastic Lens ~ Words » polaroid

Mark Skorj on the Minjonju Show

Cameron — Thu, 06 May 2010 03:48:24 +0000

Mark Skorj is an ex-pat Australian living and working in Tokyo. I have been fortunate to know him for many years through our mutual love of toy cameras, but he is also a great Polaroid photographer. We mainly interact online from time to time but I remember one memorable day we wandered around Melbourne (with another friend Mike) taking photographs of anything that grabbed our interest (see thumbnail attached to this post of Skorj ‘rückenfigur style’ taking a shot in a Melbourne alley). Skorj’s Polaroid 600SE camera can be seen in this video interview Mijonju has made, talking about photographing people amongst other things. His gentle sense of humour is evident in the video. You can see a sample of his excellent photographs on flickr and check out the website he manages with a few other analogue photographic luminaries: Filmwasters

Polaroid to make Instant Cameras again! (& World Toy Camera Day Coming Up!)

Cameron — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:10:10 +0000

Photographer Alex Syndikas at BIFB09 - taken with expired 600 integral film on a Polaroid 680 SLR SE

Less than a month after the last of the Polaroid Integral Instant film cartridges passed their use by date wonderful news has been released by those luminous people at The Impossible Project. The Impossible Project who have been working tirelessly to keep the beloved instant film alive released an update stating that the Polaroid licensee – The Summit Global Group – announced at a press conference on October 13th in Hongkong that they will re-launch some of the most famous Polaroid Instant Cameras. The Impossible Project itself has been working with Harmon Kardon to produce a new integral B&W instant film which is to be released to the market in early 2010, followed by a new batch of integral instant colour film (in collaboration with a different European company) Read more press in the online British Journal of Photography.
Just a side note, I have included the Polaroid of Alex I took a few weeks ago at the last day party for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale ’09 because, well, one it’s a Polaroid and two, Alex became quite excited when he saw my SLR 680 was a ‘blue button’ edition camera and told me how (apparently) any owner of a blue button special edition Polaroid camera could, if unhappy with a shot taken with the camera, send it back to the company and get the film replaced for free, for the life of the camera. As he is obviously a Polaroid aficionado, I thought it only fitting to include his image captured on expired Polaroid integral film here, raising a toast to the good news!

Even though it’s late notice, it would be remiss of me to forget to remind everyone that WORLD TOY CAMERA DAY is THIS WEEKEND PEOPLE!! That is October 17, 2009
The following has been pinched & paraphrased from the flickr World Toy Camera Day Group –

Invented by Becky Ramotowski, who took the idea from World Pinhole Photography Day, World Toy Camera Day spawned a world wide annual event using toy cameras and shooting endless rolls of 120 and Polaroid film and even some crappy 35mm cameras too…and has been in circulation for nine years now. So on October 17, 2009 (this coming Saturday, remember) get your favourite plastic camera and take as many lo-fi exposures as you can! (and have FUN – that’s important!)

Pinhole Day and a Quick 1st impression of Harinezumi

Cameron — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:20:40 +0000

Pears WPPD 09

This years Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (last Sunday) was less than optimal (for me) for a lot of reasons. The weather was shocking, we had power failures, my computer froze when the power finally came back on and I was suffering from the jet-lag feeling that comes from just finishing night shift and having to adjust your body clock through a 12 hour 180º shift within a day…
Apart from those factors, I had fun and actually managed to grab a few pinhole exposures that I thought were not too bad (not brilliant either however). My two cameras of choice this year were my converted Polaroid EE66 with Polaroid 125i pack film and my Holgamods Pinholga using type 84 packfilm. I started the day with little coffee cups and ended (as I seem to do) in the kitchen with some fruit…

I‘m having a lot (A LOT) of fun with the Digital Harinezumi.

Harinezumi by Harinezumi

This probably has a lot to do with how much it reminds me of using an analogue toy camera. When in still capture mode, you do not get a LCD viewfinder mode, you have to estimate what you are capturing (and anyone who uses toy cameras will know that their viewfinders are less than accurate) You also have the option of turning off the review mode of the camera so that you won’t know what you have got until you download the images to your computer (so I suppose that’s the digital equivalent of waiting to get your film developed).
In movie mode, they’re is no audio as such, there is a bit of white noise. I think it may have been fun if they had the option of the whirr of an old 8mm camera sound as well as the movies generated by the camera remind me of those and the results look very analogue, like some old family home movies from the 1960′s.

Macro Toes by Harinezumi

The colours are kick-ass funky and similar to some sort of weird cross processing type of thing going on…
As you can see from some of my initial test images, the macro function (two choices of focus here macro or normal) works very well. There is nice grain in lower lighting conditions, feeling more reminiscent to me of film grain than ‘digital’ grain. I could go on and probably will, when I do an ‘out of the box’ video review of this little electric hedgehog later on this week, but I remain impressed with what Powershovel & Superheadz have come up with.

Instant Film News, 110 Camera Reviews etc

Cameron — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:01:12 +0000

Paddling - taken with an Polaroid SX-70 camera

My thanks to Nic Nichols and his excellent blog Four Corners Dark from where I gleaned much of this information. I’ve been a bit crook with the flu so having an informative resource like Four Corners Dark to read whilst locked away (to prevent me inflicting my bugs on anyone else) feeling muzzy headed is a boon. Of course there are a lot of great toy camera related sites out there (just check the links on the sidebar or the sites of interest page) but I have been getting a lot of enjoyment reading Nic’s latest reviews and news, not the least of which the latest reviews with accompanying results of a couple of cool little (and I mean little) Cameras from Superheadz Ina Babylon, the demekin 110 format fisheye camera (that’s right!) and the ikimono, another 110 format camera that takes more conventional shots. You can read Nic’s reviews here:
The Demekin
The Ikimono

Again through reading Nic’s blog, I found out more good news about the future of instant film, in particular Polaroid, you may remember my post on The Impossible Project a while back, well it seems things have progressed read more about it at Dave Bias (one of the co-founders of Save Polaroid)

Pinhole Day Coming to a World Near You Soon

Cameron — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:37:24 +0000

t’s been a while since i updated the words part of the site, sorry. Things have been a bit busy & weird around here (something not that unusual) but I hope to be back to updating the site with interesting new material, cameras, reviews (including some cool Superheadz cameras) and videos of…stuff (It’s a very useful word, stuff)

In the meantime, this is an older video I made, the last of three from the 2008 Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Considering the 2009 WPPD is in less than 2 months away (Sunday April 26th people) I thought it was about time I posted this one! You can view the first two WPPD vids here and here. I have been considering making a new pinhole camera for this year but am not sure if I’ll have the time, as I have a few things on my plate (good things). Time will tell anyway.

I’m hoping you’ll notice an improved quality to the next videos (tutorials and reviews) that I upload to the site because I have invested in a different camera with higher video resolution, so that may make a difference!

A Pinhole Rose (Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day part 3) from artpunk on Vimeo.

February, Fires and Other Things

Cameron — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:13:30 +0000

he last few weeks have been extremely hot and dry with high winds, culminating in the worst bushfires Australia has seen in recorded history on Saturday the 7th (now being called “Black Saturday”) where the temperature reached over 46º C and many fires broke out, involving vast swathes of the State and in some cases totally obliterating some townships. Nearly 2000 homes have been destroyed and over 180 people so far have lost their lives (the final numbers are not confirmed yet, but I suspect it will go higher) My family have been fortunate, despite living in area surrounded by many forests, national parks and wooded catchment areas and the like, danger has so far passed us by, but we remain on alert and have important paperwork, photos (and for me, cameras) packed and ready to go should we need to abandon our home in the face of a dangerous threat. Of course our children and our lives are the main priority, so we must be prepared to lose those material things, if need be. So far the weather has settled and we are just waiting for some rain, but early last night as we were preparing to get the kids to bed and relax when we received a few phonecalls in quick succession from concerned friends and relatives, as a fire had broken out just ‘down the hill’ from us. Thankfully it was contained with alacrity by our brave Country Fire Authority volunteers and other emergency service workers who have been tireless in their dedication to protect the community.
I suppose this leads me to ponder on the transience of ‘things’ and the importance of photography in our personal lives and the construction of our reality through our memories. Often the first material things people try to preserve in the face of disasters like fire are their photo albums. I know that looking through my photographs of my wife and children brings me great joy and sparks recollection of happy times that often get buried below the surface of consciousness by the ongoing events and concern of everyday life.

n a lighter note, the French publisher Editions Allia has kindly sent me 5 complimentary copies of the booklet of Andalusian Poetry featuring my Polaroid abstract on the cover. This is my first Book Cover!!

ic Nichols of Four Corners Dark has an interesting interview with hideki ohmori of powershovel you know Powershovel, the cool people behind the blackbird,fly camera – this is part one, so I am looking forward to reading the next installment – update: pert two is here: interview with hideki ohmori of powershovel part two. Thanks Nic! Speaking of the BBF, the latest issue of Lightleaks magazine (Issue 22) has a review of this fine camera by C. Gary Moyer (as well as many other tasty lo-fidelity photographic content)

THE IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT

Cameron — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:27:56 +0000

s far as integral ‘instant’ film is concerned it seems there is hope still for the Polaroid fanatics amongst us, myself included.
hats off to Florian Kapps, Lexi (even though I can’t see him in the Team, I’m sure he is working extremely hard behind the scenes) and the rest of the team in their quest to bring back the production of instant integral film.
Visit The Impossible Project and read the article in the BJP related to this exciting news.

Silly Season

Cameron — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:52:49 +0000

etwixt Christmas Day & New Years Day there exists (for me) a kind of limbo, a miasma of half asleep apathy and inertia. It could be the effects of all the food and drink, not to mention the mad running around we have done, or perhaps the residual effects of the recent night shifts I completed…most probably it is a combination of all of the above.
We are the fortunate ones, with family and friends who love us, ample food, drink and a roof over our heads. The photos I share here are taken at my brother and sister-in-law’s place on Christmas night. I used an old Polaroid Vision camera with the second last pack of my expired 500 integral film stock. The colours from the expired film gave every shot a very sepia tone. I have tweaked the ‘curves’ a bit to enhance the resultant image here, because although I like the expired effects of SX-70 Integral film, the expired 500 or Spectra film just makes the shots washed out and brown…
The first shot (ensure you have javascript enabled in your browser and you will be able to click on the thumbnail and browse to more images) shows some of the family children caught just after the sugar rush kicked in, the second was the wonderfully surreal sight that greeted me when I looked out at my brother’s back yard, where (as you do), he has a small boat floating in a small (but slightly larger than the boat) kids pool. The last image is a capture of the side of my nephew & niece’s cubby house, which I liked for it’s abstract qualities, sort of like a Leger with Klee’s pastel tones.
I think I may have to set a particular theme for the last 10 Polaroid Vision (500) exposures I have left. I am really going to miss Polaroid film when my stash dries up.

have been involved in two podcasts in the past week, the first was last saturday morning when I joined in a chat with (traveling East) Susan Burnstein in Los Angeles, Ed Wenn in Great Britain and Don Brice in Adelaide, for the last filmwasters podcast of 2008. I was drinking wine at 9 in the morning after a nightshift, so I cannot really recall what we talked about, I will have to wait until Ed puts it online to refresh my memory. (I do remember offering to pose nude for Don’s last stash of Polaroid large format film, oddly enough) Then on Wednesday I joined Phil (in Footscray, Melbourne) and Michael (in Tasmania) for the Christmas Photogeek podcast, I talked a load of rubbish in that ‘cast too. Am I a podcast slut or what?

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day Part 2

Cameron — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:49:02 +0000

Part two isn’t half as entertaining as part one, primarily because it only has boring old me in it and not the kids. This was later in the afternoon, after we had been to the park and I had picked up my Holgamods Pinhole slide to do some still life photography of tomatoes. Shown is the technique of ‘painting with light’ – using a torch to selectively illuminate areas of the subject matter and transfers being made from the type 89 Polaroid packfilm. I hope you don’t find it too boring.

World Wide Pinhole Photography Day (part two) from artpunk on Vimeo.

World Polaroid Week is NOW

Cameron — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:14:25 +0000

Any time now the first contributions to the communal pool for World Polaroid Week at flickr will start appearing. I’m not sure how many more of these we will be able to have. If you can, why don’t you join in?
April 26 – well, the week is officially over in the pool (even though I would point out that 5 days is not a week!) I didn’t shoot as many Polaroids as I would have liked due to feeling rather crap at the start of the week, both physical and psychological, but I got more motivated as the week went on. I have just posted a discussion topic in the flickr group posing the week ? 5 days conundrum!