Experiment: Polaroids

Polaroids

So we did a mini project on polaroids. We started off by formatting a camera; simple enough, just go to settings and it’s usually one of the first things that come up. Then, we were set the task of capturing 12 images that correspond to 12 words. The catch? We were only allowed one shot at capturing the 12 images.

The words were:

• Contrast
• Far
• Food
• Glass
• Line
• Sass
• Satan
• Shapes
• Soul
• Sound
• Time
• Tired

Now what really threw me off here was my lack of camera experience. I’m getting the hang of camera settings, but it usually takes me a couple of test shots before I get things just right (which is why if I’m in a rush I just use my iPhone camera- it’s good on auto). I’m also not very Photoshop savvy, so when my tutor said “don’t worry, you can edit them later”, it wasn’t exactly reassuring.

Strangely, just like my New York bus photo, I found that the one I liked best was a very spontaneous meant-to-be-mugshot of a friend as she was passing in the corridor.

I didn’t really edit my photos too much. A couple of them I converted to black and white, but mostly I just tweaked the brightness. As for putting my photos into the template, we were talked through the whole process so I didn’t find it too difficult. I find it easy to understand layers and order of layers in photoshop so it was mostly just logic to cropping them and ordering them so they were behind the polaroid template.

I think overall it would’ve been useful to have a go at using polaroids because they really are one time photos, though there’s no scope for editing and I wouldn’t have learned things in photoshop without the template.

That was my contribution to the project. I think you can definitely tell they’re digital imaged placed on a template which kind of makes it look a little silly just on its own. On the wall with the whole class’ efforts put together, I think it is much more effective and doesn’t look so oddly fake. It’s nice to compare how everyone visually represents things.