Polaroids are a beautiful physical format. They give film photographers a small taste of the digital world in that they allow you to see a final product in the field rather than waiting days or weeks for darkroom work. Some time in 2012/13, the last production Polaroids were discontinued leaving large format photographers with the choice between exiting the format forever or spending an enormous amount of money to stockpile a longterm supply with an uncertain shelf life.
I purchased 12 boxes of large format Polaroids (10 shots per box) from one of the last production runs and placed them in my refrigerator hoping I would have a good use for them in the future. Even though my shots expired in September of 2012, I didn't use any until the spring of 2016, when my departure from Boulder, CO became imminent. Fortunately I did not have to leave Colorado after defending my PhD thesis as a job in an exciting new field was offered to me. But by that time I had made the decision to crack open my first box of Polaroids and begin shooting around Boulder, CO. I soon noticed that time had been mostly kind to my film, but occasionally a bit of randomness creeps into the imperfect film format and creates interesting artifacts on my images. What follows is a selection of shots from this ongoing project. This page was last updated on March 25, 2018.
© 2010 - Andrew Reineberg