For this autumn Polaroid Week, I’ve been using the new Polaroid Lab to make prints from the trip I took last February. I usually have a fairly good sense of what works within the confines of the medium: it’s not just aspect ratio and framing, but really the overall makeup of the image, whether contrast, levels, colors, or tones. Nothing isn’t taken into consideration.
I so badly wanted this image to print nicely. I’m obsessed with the interplay of dark and light – the woman in the middle could be cropped into a perfect chiaroscuro portrait. I’m also partial to the shadows on the green coat in the right foreground.
The resulting instant image? Off. Wonky. Wrong. It’s a good reminder that every now and then you’ll hit a dud, but when it comes to the artistic process that’s probably a feature and not a bug.