Brighton by Instax

Sometime last year, I bought a Fujifilm Instax Mini camera, the Neo 90 Classic. Although the camera in itself comes with a number of seductive features (double exposure, timer...), the small, if not to say tiny, size of the photos made me look upon the camera as not much more than a gimmick. As such, I used it for taking snapshots and souvenirs. I did take it with me to Brighton earlier this year, however, and as I quite like some of the resulting shots, I decided to post them. 

Much like its big brother, the Instax Wide camera, it is very good at rendering colours and for shooting in low-light situations. The images are not quite as sharp though, which in some instances actually works towards their advantage. Anyway, it proves that a camera designed for the Instagram age, i.e. for capturing food, pets, selfies and party guests, has indeed a few surprises up its sleeve...

So, here it is, Brighton by Instax Mini. Enjoy...

Instant Lab Portraits: From Digital to Analog and Back Again

A couple of years ago, Impossible Project, the makers of polaroid-compatible instant film, began producing a device they call the Instant Lab, which allows you to transfer digital images from a smartphone or tablet to instant film prints. Some call the device a printer, but Impossible Project calls it a camera, and I tend to agree with the latter. Now, Impossible Project are not the only ones manufacturing these type of devices, there exist similar ones by Fujifilm and Lomography which produce prints using Fujifilm Instax Mini film. 

The success of these devices (as well as on demand print books etc.), and the increasing demand for instant film cameras overall, obviously points to a demand for a return to tangible, physical images; not as a replacement of but existing alongside the possibilities which the digital age has to offer in terms of capturing and presenting photos. 

As interesting as that may be, I am more intrigued by another facet of this: the continuous blurring of the lines between analog and digital. Analog photos obviously also exist in the digital sphere, they are scanned (from a negative or a positive) then presented and shared online. The physical copy of the image may not even exist beyond the negative. When scanning analog photos, the results are sometimes digitally manipulated, and even if not, the very act of scanning oftentimes alters the image. Additionally, viewing a photo on a backlit screen is a very different experience from viewing a print. 

In other words, photos shot on analog equipment already lead a hermaphrodite type of existence. 

Now the Instant Lab actually keeps blurring the distinction even more. Transferring a digital image to the instant film is not a copy/paste process, the result is never a 1:1 transfer. Depending on the film used, or the exposure time, or a number of other variables, the result is different in one way or another from the original. You can even do double exposures. Like any camera, you need to get the hang of it to produce optimum results. 

And of course, all that happens after you manipulate a photo on the smartphone, sometimes more, sometimes less so.

And finally, of course, you scan the physical picture and the process has come full circle. 

I have been using the Instant Lab since 2013, and presented a good number of results on my site. I have now put together a set that showcases all the portrait and street photography images that I put through the Instant Lab. The set includes straight transfers of iPhone photos to instant film, but it also includes double exposures done with the instant lab as well as copies of manipulations I did with the pics and the iPhone. It even includes an image I created when I accidentally cracked the screen of my iPhone. 

The interesting aspect is that the device allows for a different range of images than is possible with standard Polaroid cameras. Besides the aforementioned image manipulations, this includes photos taken in situations for which the Polaroid cameras are not well suited for, interiors (if you don't like flash) or street photography (Polaroid cameras tend to be a bit too obvious for discrete shots) for example. Some results are due to accidents: my instant lab has recently developed a flaw, damaging the exposure. Strangely enough, the damage often works in favour of the image, somehow accentuating the subject in the photo (Impossible Project has offered to replace the device, I should add).

Links:

Instant Lab Portraits

More portrait works

More instant film photos

Instant Lab by Impossible Project

Signs of the Times

Last year I published a set of instant photos entitled Fragments: Signs of the Times, which I just updated with a selection of photos taken throughout 2014. Fragments is a collection of images depicting public art, graffiti, posters and other symbols (both permanent and temporary) which epitomise Berlin at a certain instant in time. The permanent structures tend to reflect much of Berlin's late 20th century history, especially its division, as they symbolise, and sometimes directly address, the tastes, affiliations and beliefs typical of West and East Berlin respectively - not just pre- but also post-fall-of-the-wall. The more temporary displays - graffiti, posters etc. - on the other hand reflect moods, tastes and opinions of the moment in time when the pictures were taken - current then, but history a couple of weeks, months, years down the line.

All the photos except one were taken with Polaroid cameras and a variety of Impossible Project films, both colour and black and white. 

[Click here to view]

Urban Geometry

Urban Geometry is the title of a new set which I've recently added to the Polaroid section of the site. In it, I explore the geometry found in modern architecture and urban development. I shot these images chiefly in Berlin over the course of 2014.

 

Click here to view.

I Wonder If I Know Him Now: India Revisited

This past October I returned to India for what was my tenth trip to that country. While revisiting familiar places, I also spend time in a corner of India which I haven't been to before, namely Odisha, or Orissa as it was formerly called. This western state lays claim to some of the oldest temples in all of India, if not the world - temples up to 2000 years old; but for all that, it is not really a tourist destination - at least not a place where western tourists flock to. As such I saw but three westerners during my stay in Bhubaneswar, and while Puri and its beaches attract a number of backpackers, they are vastly outnumbered by the Indian tourists and pilgrims. Puri is home to the large 12th century Jaganath temple, one of India's four holy pilgrim sites. Bhubaneswar is home to a range of temples, some of them dating back to BC, including the imposing Lingaraj temple with its 54m high tower. Other holy places nearby are the caves at Khandagiri and Udayagiri, hewn out of the rock by Jain priests in the second century BC, and a more recent Buddhist pagoda in Dhauri, honouring the warrior-king turned pacifist Buddhist, Ashoka. The largest temple in the vicinity is the Sun Temple in Kornarak, dating back to the 13th century.

Odisha is not as spectacular as Rajasthan is, the northern state I visited on my

last two trips to India. Rajasthan boasts glamorous palaces and colourful cities which Odisha doesn't have. Odisha certainly has magnificent landscapes, but in the end, to me as an outsider at least, the region seems to be very much about the holy places, and thus about religion and spirituality. Obviously, India is by nature a very spiritual country, or should I say, Indians are a very spiritual people. Not all, of course, but many, even those who are not outright religious, consider themselves to be spiritual. This is reflected in their outlook, their customs big and small, their food, their adornments (which are never just adornments but always symbols of something), and not to mention the many religious festivals held throughout the year. Odisha, with its high concentration of temples and pilgrims, and it's lack of worldly attractions, seems very much like an epicenter of this spirituality; and indeed, there was not a single person from Orissa who I met who didn't, by word or by deed, displayed their affinity towards, or veneration of, all things religious and spiritual. 

Religion is not something I generally think highly of. I believe it is at the root of most evil perpetrated in the world, as it constitutes the greatest single cause of hatred and intolerance; and certainly India had and still has its fair share of strife caused by religious intolerance. Yet it is very hard not to be charmed by the outlook on life which rises out of the beliefs of many of the Indians whom I met over the years. For starters, their attitude is generally a very inclusive one, at least with regard to visitors (whether or not the same tolerance that is granted outsiders is shown to members of one's own family or close friends is a different discussion). It's also very life affirming and optimistic. And it even produces effects that you wouldn't normally think - such as the fact (as some people claim) that the preponderant veneration of the goddess Kali in  the city Kolkata leads to women in Kolkata being generally more empowered than in other parts of India.

This makes India a good place to visit as the people you meet are open and welcoming, tolerant of one's quirks and differences, curious in a good way and ready to become friends. I've stated this in previous posts, but to me, visiting India is more about meeting people than it is about seeing great sights. And this time, even more than on previous visits, that fact is reflected in the photos I took. Yes, I also photographed temples and other sights and aspects, but 90% of the photos I took are portraits. Indians in general are happy to be photographed, all you need is ask. I asked pilgrims and priests, families on the beach, passers-by on the street. Sometimes, I didn't even need to ask as some, mainly youngsters, happily volunteered. The result is an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life.

On the last two visits to India I had chiefly taken colour polaroid films with me, but each time I was unhappy with the resulting  exposures as most of them were discoloured - whether by the heat or by the airport x-ray machines, I don't know, but I found the resulting red discolouration more than just a bit distracting (see my earlier post here). Thus, this time around, I packed but one colour film and seven black and white films, including Impossible Project's new Pigeonhole film with its round border, which I found perfect for portrait photography. This decision paid off as I came back with many more worthwhile polaroids than I did on previous trips. 

I put together a selection of the best instant photographs, focusing on the portraits, under the title: I Wonder If I Know Him Now: Faces of India 2014. I have yet to develop a series of Holga films which will follow later, which, together with a selection of digital photos, will focus on other aspects of the visit.

Links:

- I Wonder If I Know Him Now: Faces of India 2014

- more of my photos from India

- more portraits from around the world

Finally: the title of this blog post and of the set is based on a poem by the Kolkatan writer and artist Rabindranath Tagore:

I wonder if I know him

I wonder if I know him

In whose speech is my voice,

In whose movement is my being,

Whose skill is in my lines,

Whose melody is in my songs

In joy and sorrow. 

I thought he was chained within me,

Contained by tears and laughter,

Work and play. 

I thought he was my very self

Coming to an end with my death.

Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him

In the sight and touch of my beloved? 

This ‘I’ beyond self I found

On the shores of the shining sea.

Therefore I know

This ‘I’ is not imprisoned within my bounds. 

Losing myself, I find him

Beyond the borders of time and space.

Through the Ages

I come to know his Shining Self

In the life of the seeker,

In the voice of the poet. 

From the dark clouds pour the rains.

I sit and think:

Bearing so many forms, so many names,

I come down, crossing the threshold

Of countless births and deaths. 

The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,

Embracing past and present,

Dwells in Man.

Within Him I shall find myself –

The ‘I’ that reaches everywhere.

(Translated by William Radice)

Optiko Magazine

Optiko is a UK based magazine dedicated to analogue photography. They have recently published their issue number 5 which spotlights instant photography. The issue features two black and white polaroids of mine, namely The Woman By the Merry-Go-Round on the Beach in Brighton and Nelson On a Stick.

Here is a link to Optiko's site where the issue can be ordered. 

Berlin in Black & White

These past months I've been heavily shooting black and white instant films. One of my favourite films has turned out to be Impossible Project's new 'Hard Color' film with its solid colour frames and stark contrasts, a combination I really like; but I've also been using that other favourite film of my, the black framed one.

I've put together the best of the urban-themed photos which I shot around Berlin in a new set entitled 'City Polaroids: Berlin in Black & White' [Click here to view]. I've always loved black and white photography for its seemingly time-bending quality, that is, the fact that it couples memories of old classic photos with contemporary realities such as (post-)modern architecture and contemporary urban scenes. Or alternatively, how it evokes a sense of a lost past when photographing historic places or old buildings, a theme I explored in an earlier set, Another Time [read the blog entry here].

Enjoy...

[City Polaroids: Berlin in Black & White]

[More Berlin Polaroids]

[More Instant Film photographs]

People Polaroids

I've uploaded a new set of portraits taken with Polaroid cameras. The set also includes several shots produced with Impossible Project's Instant Lab camera, from original shots taken with the iPhone.

The photos date from last summer until now. Most were taken in Berlin, but there are also a few from India and a couple of other places.

Click here to view the set

For more people photographs, click here.

For more instant film photographs, click here.

For more info on the Instant Lab camera, click here to view the Impossible Project site.

Lines and Light

As you might have guessed from previous postings, I like to photograph buildings. Often, I find a building at it's most fascinating when, on sunny days, it becomes clear how the architecture plays with light, be it in the way it reflects light,  breaks it, or lets it through. When lines and shapes are enhanced by light and by shadows. 

I just put up a new Polaroid set which reflects this, Lines and Light. The photographs were taken in Berlin, in Metz, France (some in the Centre Pompidou), and a couple in London.

Enjoy. 

Fragments: Signs of the Times

I put together another Polaroid set which I called Fragments: Signs of the Times. It is a collection of shots of the kind of bits and pieces of the the type of signs that humans leave behind in the cities and which, eventually, come to stand for a certain time, and possibly a certain place. This can be anything from street art and public art to human detritus or simple decorations. The city in question being Berlin, these fragments point to bin the distinct cultures and tastes that evolved in the two parts of the once divided city, of the free spaces that opened up on either side of the wall before and after its fall. 

If this sounds a bit highfaluting, it isn't meant to be... at the end of the day, it's about finding interesting motives to photograph, especially finding new motives to photograph in a city that I, and many other people besides, have been busy documenting of late....

I've been shooting the photos pretty much throughout this year, using various Polaroid cameras, and on a variety of Impossible Project films, so that the results come in different moods and colors (including black & white). I hope you enjoy it.

[Click here to view the set]

Polaroids from London and Brighton

I uploaded a selection of the polaroids I shot while visiting London and Brighton a couple of weeks ago. I alternated between colour and black & white films, using predominantly the black-frame 600 UV+ film, which has become my favourite black & white film. The weather alternated between sunny and stormy and rainy, so that I ended up with pics of blue skies as well as stormy seas.... 
– Brighton Polaroids
– London Polaroids

New Polaroid Portraits

I brought back new portrait photographs taken with Polaroid cameras from a recent trip to the UK, as well as some new ones from Berlin, and posted them in the revised People in Polaroids set.
[Click here to view]

Winter passes....

... eventually, and in case anyone is missing it already, here is a selection of Polaroids taken during this long, long winter season..... [click here to view]

Flipboard Magazine Update

The magazine People in Polaroids which I created for the flipboard app a while ago has in the course of a week garnered over 1700 subscribers....

Here is the link again:http://flip.it/7KL2s. The magazine is viewable using flipboard for iOS and for Android.

Instant Travelog Blog

Impossible Project, the manufacturer of the new Polaroid films, published this short feature of mine on their 'Instant Travelog' blog, about my trip to India back in January, together with a selection of the Polaroids I shot there.[Click here to view]

New Polaroid Set: Abandoned Homes

A few weeks ago I came across a vast area of houses being demolished to make way for a new, controversial strip of highway to be built across Berlin. The area was fenced off but a gate was left open so I slipped in and shot a couple of films of Polaroids, a selection of which I now uploaded.

In case you're wondering at the nature of these houses, they are really 'city cottages'. They are part of a typical phenomena in German cities: stretches of land set aside for gardening where city people can rent plots to set up a cottage and tend a garden. These places tend to be miniature worlds - somewhat akin to trailer parks and year-round camping sites, where people set up for themselves their own little homes away from home, often fancifully decorated in ways that people probably would not deck out their main places of living. This is not necessarily in the best of taste - there can be found a fair abundance of garden goblins and other similar pseudo-rural kitsch used in obvious attempts to create make-believe suburban utopias in the heart of the cities. 

In this particular area the cottages are now being demolished, the buildings are empty and only the shells remain (for now). These shells have become the canvases for urban artists to leave their mark and create imaginative, if temporary, pieces of art. This I find one of those phenomena typical of urban life: creation amidst destruction.

I used a Polaroid SX-70 Sonar camera for the shoot, with Impossible Project PX 70 and PX 680 CP films.

[Click here to view]

8 Exposures....

Impossible Project, the company that produces the new Polaroid instant film, has published an interview with me on their web site. Here is the link: http://blog.the-impossible-project.com/8-exposureswith-ghee-dondlinger

With many thanks again to the great Impossible Project team, not just for making the films (of course) but also for promoting the instant film community in such an active and supporting way. 

India Polaroids

I recently returned from a three week trip to India. I spent half of this vacation visting friends in Mumbai, and the other half hanging out and doing some sightseeing in and around Udaipur, which is located in Rajhastan, in Northern India.

For now I have scanned and posted the Polaroids which I took in those two cities. I will write up a more detailed account of the trip - and of my impressions of India - in the near future. For now here is the link to the India Polaroids. 

More text and more photos to follow.  

Another Time: Berlin in Black & White Polaroids

I think I wrote about this already in an earlier post: I believe that today's Polaroid photography has two distinct faces - colour and black & white. Colour polaroids, especially Impossible Project's new Color Protection film, are vibrant, and for me very much 'today' (to avoid the term 'modern'), and personally I do not associate them with the images from the 60s or 70s, the heyday of colour polaroid photography.

But for black and white polaroids, I find this to be different. The 'Silver Shade' film stock produces results which to me are very much reminiscent of old photographs; thanks mostly to the light leaks and the other imperfections, and the sepia sheen that the photos take on if not stored in a dry place for a while shortly after being taken. David Sylvian, in the liner notes to the catalogue for his Impossible Project exhibition, Glowing Enigmas, called this "the look of something long lost, redeemed from memory, another time and place." 

Thus when I decided on a project involving black and white film (i.e. Impossible Project's Silver Shade films), I figured that combining images of Berlin's historic buildings (and other old landmarks) with the vintage look and feel of the Silver Shade films made perfect sense. So over these past two, mostly cold and grey, months, I was out with the Polaroid cameras, capturing not only the better known historic landmarks in the center of Berlin, but also a number of older industrial buildings throughout the city. As always, there are some exceptions to the rule - so not every building I captured in the series is old or historic.  The industrial buildings by the way I found fascinating enough to want to devote a whole series to them in the near-ish future.

So here it is then, the outcome of my latest project, aptly named "Another Time: Berlin in Black & White". Enjoy. And let me know what you think.

More of my polaroid work can be found [here] and on [flickr]. 

Read my earlier post about David Sylvian's recent polaroid work [here].

City Polaroids: Berlin, Part 2

 In September I published several sets of polaroid photos which I had taken over the summer, mostly in Berlin but also in Budapest and the South of France. As summer turned to autumn, I kept shooting polaroids, fretting a bit that the results may end up being inferior once less-than-perfect daylight conditions set in. As it turned out, both the cameras and the films continued to perform really well, and I ended up with another satisfying selection of pictures.

I published one set earlier, featuring mostly the autumnal colours that nature puts on display at that time of year. This week-end I uploaded another set in the "City Polaroids" series. These images were all taken between October and November in Berlin. As in the earlier sets, I mixed details i.e. fragments of urban life with shots of buildings (see also my comments in the related blog entry here). 

Now, compared to the sets published this summer, there are two major differences. One, of course, is the changing season: the bright colours of summer giving way gradually to the muted shades, or even non-colours, of autumn. At the same time, Impossible Project, the makers of the polaroid films, came out with a new formula, the Color Protection film. This new film stock manages to render colours a lot more life-like than the previous iterations. At first I used the PX 70 film (as I shoot mostly with SX-70 cameras), but then began using the PX 680 film together with an ND filter, and this is the solution that I eventually stuck with. The PX 680 film's results are a shade darker than the PX 70, and the colours a bit more on the cold side. Also, they are more saturated and there were fewer irregularities. So if I were to recommend one film, it would be this PX 680 Color Protection.

Enough said, here are the links:

• City Polaroids: Berlin (2) - Autumn Colours
• City Polaroids: Berlin (1) - Summer Colours
• Polaroid page