Socket Set

Summer is for exploring. The beat-up Honda has kicked up dust in our local blueberry fields, baked in the sun at mini-golf, and waited patiently at the curb while we ate big bowls of noodles. Even though it's near 90 degrees most days, I'm hauling along a bag full of cameras. Trying to keep the little boy and the film cool is challenging, but Vietnamese iced coffee helps.

When I pulled out my old, leather Polaroid SX-70, there was an audible flutter among the noodle eaters. You can't be shy and shoot vintage Polaroids. (Luckily, I'm not.) And the golden glow of this DIY chandelier was worth a shot.

Impossible Project PX680 Cool Instant Film

Polaroid SX-70 Camera

Bigger Every Day

Today is my little boys' sixth birthday. When he woke up today, the first words out of his mouth were, "I feel taller!" And when I visited his Kindergarten class this morning with a plate full of cupcakes, he was so excited that all he could do was stand there big-eyed, like a statue. (A slightly taller statue.)

Little toys like this one are slowly being replaced with soccer balls and Legos. It's a little wistful to pack up these old things, but man, it's exciting to see where he'll go next.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy J!

Impossible Project PX680 Cool Color Shade Instant Film

Polaroid SX-70 Camera

Urban Outfitters Print Shop!

Today Urban Outfitters chose one of my Polaroid prints for inclusion in their Print Shop, a partnership with Society6. I couldn't be happier. What I like about this image is, well..., it's sexy. Buttery soft cotton sheets, still warm, with the early morning sun casting deep shadows in the folds. Makes you want to crawl back in. (Who knew an unmade bed could be a potential revenue stream!)

Impossible Project PX100 Silver Shade Instant Film

Polaroid SX-70 Camera

Plain Beauty

I just returned from a short visit to a place where I grew up. One of the places. I always felt like a visitor there. Good people all around me, but not my people. If you know what I mean.

What struck me on this visit, as always, is the landscape. A German work ethic is applied to the land with a firm hand, and in early spring the whole place is fields of color. And I don't mean planting fields.

Broad expanses of saturated color. Grass green. Sky blue. Earth brown. With sharp edges and angles between. (In fact, Mennonite women bent over edging tools and weed wackers along roadsides everywhere we traveled). No serendipity or happenstance. Orderliness and plain beauty.

It makes this part of upstate New York, which I love, look like it needs a haircut and a shave. And the quick touch of a hot iron.

(Thank god I finally found my people.)

Shadow Play

With the first sign of spring (a good eight weeks early), I called my old friend who is keeper of the gardens at a beautiful historic site along the Hudson River. In my enthusiasm for the season, I packed the Polaroid cameras (too many of them) into a tote bag and headed off to visit the plants in the greenhouse and take my friend to lunch.

I jumped the gun. His greenhouse was warm, yes. And it was full of diffuse light, yes. But, it was not full of plants. More like seeds. Germinating. Germination is a wonder. But, it is not colorful. Little peat pots of dirt everywhere. Peat pots. Dirt.

Not to fear. I shall visit again. And next time hope something other than the shadow play on the heat grate catches my eye.

Uncork Your Heart

let loose

let the love flow

Valentine's Day in Polaroid

What's not to love about Valentine's Day? Flowers. Candy. Kisses!

Though as I flip through memories of Valentine's past, it doesn't take long to get all the way back to high school and student council Carnation Day. An annual barometer of social successes (like we needed the reminder).

50 cents each. Ordered in advanced. Handed out in homeroom. Red, the i-love-you carnations (unlikely in 10th grade, but there they were). Pink, the i-like-you carnations. And the sad looking white, i-want-to-be-friends carnations. 

You see where I'm headed with this. Some girls paraded the hallways the rest of the day with arm loads of reds and pinks. The rest of us settled for a couple of ragged whites given by our best girl friends so we would not be utterly pathetic. Some years there was even the occasional pink from a timid boy who never made anything of it anyway.

I still find the smell of carnations a bit revolting.

Grown up is so much better. My little kindergartener is headed off with a backpack full of silly Valentine's for his mates at school. And I'll just pretend that high school is nowhere on the horizon.

Happy Valentine's Day to you. Hope "your man" gives "you" a big box of handmade chocolates. (hint... hint...)

Knitting for Buddhists

January has been a quiet month. Lots of time at home. Maybe a little too much time at home, if you know what I mean.

Three knitting projects have flown off my needles this past week, wrapping up unfinished warm woollies that have been lying around for months. Idle hands may be the Devil's workshop, but man, oh man. Sit down with some mindless knitting and your little brain can crank away in the most sinful directions. Idle hands my ass. It's an idle mind that will really get you in trouble.

Sunday I decided to set down the damned needles and get out that divine camera. Looking at things. Really closely. Will bring you right back to the here and now. Somehow the mundane realities of a snowless winter in upstate New York with lunch boxes to pack and bills to pay is looking a whole lot better.

Note to self: Take more photographs. Really.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 2012 is a nice round number, isn't it? Ought to be a good one.

Sweet Relief

It's getting a little too sweet around here. Here's something to wipe the taste of sugar out of your mouth.

(Because in this season of excess, there's more sweetness coming, of course.)

Peace

Today is the first day on the Advent calendar, and around here we have gleefully begun the countdown to Christmas (never mind that we're Buddhist). Someone smarter than me observed that Christmas is a holiday by women and for women. (Of course, we're talking about the secular holiday as celebrated in these whacked 50 states.) Truer words have never been spoken.

The wisdom I take away from this observation? Take it easy.

Don't invite 40 people to brunch (oh, but we had fun - didn't we?). Don't hand-make the gift wrap (did it). Don't build a gingerbread house more beautifully fitted out than your own home (also guilty). Hell, don't even bake.

Take it easy. Play Christmas carols every day. Eat chocolate. Really listen to the people you love. The rest will take care of itself.

This holiday month I wish you peace (and quiet).

Polaroid Week 2011. Friday

What I learned from Polaroid Week;

Film is not meant to sit in your refrigerator,

Take pictures where you are (because you don't actually live in Paris),

Even when a single print costs nearly $4, shot. Just shoot (and don't do the math),

No matter how narrow your obsession, there are thousands of people out there with the same obsession,

And you can learn a lot from them.

Thank You! to everyone who dug deep for Polaroid Week 2011.
(can we do this more often?)

Polaroid Week 2011. Thursday

Our garlic harvest is in. The big guy spent last evening hanging it in the garage to cure. The smell is great in that hot, dry building right now. Earthy with just a hint of garlic.

And a garlic plant has the most beautiful texture. Papery with a fringe of roots. Needless to say, a bundle of plants ended up in front of the lens for Polaroid Week (and the morning light in my bedroom window deserved a second take).

Polaroid Week 2011. Wednesday

Polaroid Week. Day 3. (can you tell it's hot here and we're mostly by the pool most of the time?)

Amazing images are being snapped all over the world this week. Next week I'll post some of my favorites for you. Two per day. Day by day. Extending the pleasure of a week of collective creativity.

Polaroid Week 2011. Tuesday

Today was the perfect summer day.

An afternoon with my boy by the pool following a lazy morning.  Hot, yellow sunshine through the bedroom curtains and pj's until noon.

Captured with grace and elegance by Silver Shade instant film. When it's good, it's really good.

Good Humor

Lately, I've been hearing the ice cream man circulate the neighborhood in his big ol' panel van with the megaphone on top. American summer.

A few summers ago, it was the little Thai push cart with a dinging bell that called us out to the curb. Every day. Then again, summer is every day when you live in Thailand.

The ice cream man's cart brought us coconut milk ice cream. You could get yours in a cup or on a hamburger bun. With or without sweetened condensed milk poured over the top. hmmm. Make mine a cup with some of those dry roasted peanuts on top.

Man, I miss that little push cart, but Good Humor will have to do.

New Color

Spring has finally arrived in the Hudson Valley, and with it tons of new color.

I, alas, am completely out of film. It is killing me. I burned through this stock of expired chemical Polaroid in winter. I flew through a fresh supply of "new" color film with... um... lack-luster results. Yesterday, however, the next generation of The Impossible Project's color film hit the stands. It's in the mail, and it is capable of color. Lots of color. Deep reds and glowing oranges.

Thank. You. New color is on the way (if only that beautiful spring chartreuse will wait for me!).

Half Full

It is rainy and a little bitter outside today, but the glass is half full. The sweet pea seeds are planted in the cold frame. Radishes, mizuna and shell pea seeds are tucked under a blanket of composted manure in the garden. And, the forsythia along the road are just about to open. (Of course, the vintage Land Camera collection is arranged neatly on the shelf awaiting an afternoon of shooting bloom.)

The Impossible Project

Many thanks to the folks at The Impossible Project for choosing this photograph as a fave over on Flickr. Bounce over there and have a look at the lovely photographic possibilities with their resurrected film.

The fragility of the colors and the ephemeral nature of these prints make working with Impossible's early versions of their films an adventure in analog photography.

Tearful Goodbye

 

 My very last pack (just 8 little prints) of expired Polaroid film. (sniff. sniff.) Yes, the boys at The Impossible Project are working away on lovely film made with fresh chemicals, but I have loved the surprises in the little turquoise box.