Why Polaroid?

I will be in Europe for the next three weeks, so posting will be sporadic.  I will leave you with this rather long post: 'Why Polaroid?' It is the preface to my masters (MA (by research) thesis.),and traces the reasons as to how and why I first became interested in the integral Polaroid as a photographic medium, and, in closing, looks at where this interest has led me. Why you pick up a Polaroid camera and continue using it is a fascinating question! 

Why Polaroid? 

When it was proclaimed that the Library comprised all books, the first impression was one of extravagant joy. All men felt themselves lords of a secret, intact treasure. (Borges, 1993, p67).

I began using integral Polaroid film during my first year at university after purchasing a second-hand Image System camera advertised on a campus notice board. The aim was to negotiate my way out of a recurring dilemma, first manifest during my BTEC course in audio-visual design a few years before: how to actually produce a photographic image.

I am not referring to the specific technical aspects of printing here, but to the manifold stylistic possibilities. What type of film should I use – which format, which manufacturer? Colour, slide or monochrome? What camera should I place this film in? What speed film should I use? How should I expose such film: at that recommended or pushed? Which manufacturers developer should I use? How should I develop the resulting negatives? For the time indicated by the instructions, or should I deviate from this – and if so, allow the negatives to remain submerged for a shorter or longer time than indicated? And then there were questions in regard to the specifics of the photographic paper: of course this is again a question of manufacturer and also of surface: should I choose glossy, matt or pearl? And once the negative was placed in the enlarger’s carrier, framing presented further possibilities. Should I permit myself the latitude of cropping - or, as Cartier Bresson insisted upon (though not always for himself), maintain the integrity of the full frame? And if so, should I incorporate the whole negative (highlighting textual details of the film manufacturer, film speed and frame number, making feature of the holes in which the spool fits), or remain content to print flush to the border of the image proper? And how should the resultant image rest on the photographic paper itself? Centred, raised – or should it appear more random – as if the image itself has been haphazardly placed upon the surface of the paper itself? Should I use filters? And of course there were more problems: what size paper should I use? But I am getting ahead of myself here… Test-prints themselves seemed full of possibilities, were as equally valid as any final print I may have had in mind, or indeed produced – to the extent that I began to produce test-prints of the image entire, horizontal and vertical on 12” x 16” paper. The problem was I found all such possibilities of interest – each was an exploration, a question - and always a confusion. Analogue colour photography presented further distractions, each ‘incorrect’ print – an excess of blue or yellow, a diminished red – were of equal fascination. And as for digital means of image production…

I did attempt to rein in such confusion – using 35mm film; the ASA always set to 6400 irrespective of its actual speed and would develop all film for no less than twice the time recommended (a coffee and two cigarettes). I would print on matt paper – 6 x 4” or 12 x 16” always centred and always use a grade five filter. Eventually I decided to dispense with spooling the exposed film and rather scrunch it up and jam it into the developing tub – which always seemed barely able to contain it. But still possibilities would always pull me aside.

In short, I wanted to find a photography that limited such possibilities, such choice, to free myself to concentrate on the image itself, the idea I wished to make manifest. In this, of course, I was seeking to concentrate on the act of taking a photograph rather than making a photograph – the moment of exposure rather than the delayed and time-consuming production of a photographic print.

So, during my first year of university I purchased a second-hand Polaroid Image System camera. It came with ten filters and a close-up lenses – all in their original bag. Control is limited: three F- stops, auto-focus on or off, a self-timer (12 seconds only), a tripod mount, built in flash: on or off – and sound (if so desired – this could also be controlled: on or off), which alerts me if there is insufficient light, the camera is too close to the subject, or the self-timer has been activated: the beeps coming closer together as the twelve seconds count down, ending in a high pitched single, elongated note – followed by the sound of the shutter opening and closing, the Polaroid ejecting.

The camera itself dictates the film type. The resultant Polaroids are – including the frame –10.2 x 10.2cm. The surface area of the actual image proper is 9.2 x 7.3 cm. Film speed ISO 640. Developing time: approximately three minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. No confusion in regards to film type, paper, size, and means of printing. I just pointed the camera and pressed the button. The film did the rest. Or, as Trotman states in regards to its predecessor, SX70:

Land out did the infamous Kodak dictum of "you press the shutter, we do the rest" by placing "the rest" back into the consumers' hands. (2002)

Edward Land is reported as saying that he embarked on the creation of the instant Polaroid camera in response to his daughter’s dismay at being unable to see, right away, the photographs they were taking during their holiday. Geoffrey Batchen, in seeking to trace the moment when the concept of photography, ‘the appearance of a regular discursive practice for which photography is the desired object’ (1991, p.15) manifests itself (in distinction to its actual realisation) further articulates what this desire actually constitutes. This is achieved through the employment of quotations from such individuals as John Claire, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Cowper (amongst others) – in poems written prior to the ‘empirical incident’ (1991, p.13) of photographies actual realisation. To take just one example, that of Coleridge (1991, pp.17-18):

creation rather than painting, or if painting, yet such, and with such co-presence of the whole picture flash’d as once upon the eye, as the sun paints in a camera obscura.

This desire then is not only to have the capability to fix an image in a manner that is lasting and striving for permanence, but that such fixing is both instantaneous and without mediation. Indeed, it is this lack of mediation that is stressed in the title of Talbot’s 1839 paper to the Royal Society mentioned by Batchen: Some accounts of the Art of Photogenic drawing, or, The Process by Which natural Objects May Be Made to Delineate Themselves without the Aid of the Artist’s Pencil… (1991, p.24).

In this, then, it could be said that my reconciliation to such a specific manner of photographic production – the instant and integral Polaroid - is in keeping with the original impulse of photography itself, an articulation that privileges the act of taking the photograph rather than the image produced as a by-product of exposure through the facilities available in the darkroom (Scott, 1999, p.17), or, increasingly, the digital editing suite. I did not want to be tied to a specific location (darkroom, computer) or require additional, supplementary materials: scanner or printer, developing tank or heater; I wanted image production to be as quick and easy as possible. As David Eisendrath, a photo consultant for TIME and Modern Photography succinctly illustrates in explaining why Kodak was so keen to infringe the Polaroid Corporations patents:

Kodak finally realized what Polaroid knew from the start—that there are people who want to take good pictures, and other people who want to see them as fast as possible. The latter group is much larger than the former. (1976)

Of course, is nothing new. Charles R. Gibson writing in 1925, reminisces:

I can well remember, some twenty years ago, when, in country districts, one found people surprised that the photographic artist “could draw so quickly”, the idea being that he drew the pictures by hand the while he disappeared beneath his focussing cloth. (p.13)

Of course, I disagree with the notion that ‘good pictures’ are speed are mutually exclusive; and, as the personal photographic work produced in conjunction with this text will illustrate, it is no easy task keeping to such simplistic means. The Polaroid is not just a tool for creating images, but one that lends itself to various interactions, for instance: ripping and scrunching, stacking and arranging. It also lends itself to multiple representations, images of images: on the screen (computer and video), in a book, and by reference to the numerical data on its reverse. In effect, documents of the Polaroid.

Paradoxically then, it could be said that while my initial use of the integral Polaroid was simplistic in that it was confined to image production, my research has led to further explorations, questions – and confusions.

References:

Borges, Jorge Luis (1993). Ficciones. Every Man’s Library. London.
This is excellent! The whole thing! I only read it a few years ago and afterwards told everyone I knew about it. Most of them had already read it and wondered why  it had took me so long to do so.

Trotman, Nat (2002). The life of the party - the Polaroid SX-70 Land camera and instant film photography. Afterimage. May 2002. Available online at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_6_29/ai_87130446 [Accessed 03/05/05].
It really was that long ago. This is a classic essay on the Polaroid  and one that I have referenced a number of times, both here and elsewhere.

Batchen, Geoffrey Desiring Production Itself. In DIPROSE, ROSALYN, FERRELL, ROBYN (eds) Diprose (1991). Cartographies: Poststructualism and the mapping of bodies and spaces. Chapt. 12. Allen & Ulnwin. North Sydney.
An excellent essay and a fortuitous find.

Scott, Clive (1999). The Spoken Image: Photography & Language. Reaktion Books. London.
This is an excellent book. The discussion between taking and making photographs especially. The wide-ranging use of sources (film, etc) is also a plus.

Gibson, Charles. R. (1925). The romance of modern photography. Seeley, Service & Co. London.
I bought this for the boards...

Eisendrath, David (1976). Instant battle: KODAK v. Polaroid. 26/04/76. Available online at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879691-1,00.html [Accessed 10/04/07].