instant film — CameraPlusFilm — Daniel Baird-Miller

A few weeks ago, I packed up my gear and headed off to an over- Night photography workshop on Bannerman Island. Matt Hill & Gabe Biderman are two awesome people, who happen to love photography, the night sky, and teaching/ sharing their knowledge and skills with others.

I've known Matt and Gabe for a while now, but I was happy to catch up with them since I hadn't seen them in quite some time.

Instead of making my life easy, and shooting either with a digital camera, or at the very least a film camera, I decided to "restrain myself."

By restraining, I decided to Only bring Instant film.

This post isn't filled with blank sheets of wasted film (Thankfully)

Thom Johnson took us over to the Island. His knowledge of the Island was expansive, and he shared a lot with our group. I will not try and reiterate what he mentioned.... basically, this Island is super interesting and has a few walls left of this giant castle that once stood on the Island. Frank Bannerman was the man behind the Army Navy Store.

I had to get a daylight shot here and there, or else coming home with nothing would have been a little too much to bare.-Polaroid 669 shot on a Polaroid 250 — I had to get a daylight shot here and there, or else coming home with nothing would have been a little too much to bare.
-Polaroid 669 shot on a Polaroid 250

So the tools I brought over were some Polaroid Type 54, Polaroid 669, A couple boxes of TIP film, and some New55PN.

Seeing a castle in the middle of the Hudson is a weird experience, but its pretty cool to be able to photograph it, let alone in the daylight hours. At night, it was a pretty wonderful experience.

When I shoot in groups, I always tend to feel a bit of an oddball/ self-conscious. Traditionally, I'm around photographers who are shooting with a digital camera and are figuring out precise calculations to get a perfect image.

I on the other hand, shoot from the hip, (sometimes literally) and work with my muscle memory/ intuition on "proper exposure." I sorta feel like Doc Brown in Back To The Future running around trying to explain some intangible theory.

The New55 Film I recieved just in the nick of time, and I was really excited to use some of their film at night.
I've been testing their film at night basically since I've first got my hands on the stuff. The latest iteration film itself has minimal reciprocity failure. I'd chalk it up to ~2 stops difference. Than what my digital camera light meter readings told me.

I love the contrast that a full moon creates.  (Negative scan) — I love the contrast that a full moon creates. (Negative scan)

The 669 material quickly showed its weakness. Although during the daylight, the film was working pretty decently, yet at night, the reciprocity failure was too much, it gave me these blocky tones. At the time, I decided to quit while I was ahead, but now that I'm editing them, I like what they're doing creating negative space with the blackness.

The Type 54 worked pretty goot when I tested it at home, but in the field, it had similar issues to the 669 when night really hit. I also got some weird fogging issues, but it has its own charactaristics, I guess.

One of the most surprising things of the evening was shooting with my newly upgraded/ restored SX-70. Matt over at 2ndShot restored an sx70 I found in Seoul last year.
Previously anything shot with Impossible film was crap. Unadulterated poop. This trip has made me change my tune.

Sure, the tones aren't perfect, but the film worked. The Impossible Film actually worked!

I've always taken the New55 Film PN as two things, kind of like fraternal twins. The positive and negative have similarities, but arent the same. The negative is a tradional negative, but the positive is closer to an alt pro palladium print than a silver print like you'd normally see.

The Negative and The Positive. The negative clearly gets more information, but the negative takes on a different charactaristic. The tones change things.

Last week was Polaroid Week, (or 'Roid Week) and I made almost no acceptable images, So instead of being sad, I'm honoring Edwin with this post.
I shot Polaroid and Fuji instant film all through Asia. (well at least in Korea and Japan) While in Korea, I had a mostly functional Polaroid 350. I took hundreds of polaroid prints home with me in a box that i'm yet to scan(Still waiting for them to flatten out). Since Korea, I replaced the bellows and accidentally punched a new hole through it. Thankfully a wonderful friend gifted me a brand new to me polaroid 250

If you're unfamiliar with Instant film, It makes some gorgeous images. I have a soft spot for any type of instant film because of my past affiliation with These Guys. In terms of instant film, Fuji's FP100C is especially special. Typically instant film produces a positive print that you can scan and do what you like with it. But with FP100C, you can also recover the negative itself. Some old polaroid films like Polaroid type 55 and Type 665 could get a positive and a negative. FP100C is a color film with a color negative, almost unheard of in modern film photography. The process to get the negative isn't so cut and dry. You must use a form of bleach to remove the black material on the back of the film. I've recently began using The Brothers Wright's workflow. Here are both some really terrible examples, as well as some pretty awesome ones. Using bleach has a chance of destroying, or shifting the colors of the film, so I am especially drawn to this material. Take a look at most of my previous work on my site here, and you can understand some other examples.