Obsessed with the Stars and Stripes

We moved on from the heat of NYC to the heat of Cape Cod, but at least here we had a sea breeze and a lake to swim in...bliss Oakcrest Cove at Peters Pond is the place to stay.
Since getting a copy of Robert Frank's The Americans for Christmas the other year have become obsessed with Americana images and the US flag. What immediately hits you in the US is that these things are everywhere, they are very patriotic. The flags began creeping in to my images.

Impossible PX70Cool film
Polaroid SX70 Folding SLR

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Liberty on 5th

Lady Liberty, selling postcards on 5th Avenue

Impossible Project PX70 Cool Film
Polaroid SX70 Folding SLR

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3rd Avenue and 42nd Street

We'd been on the "Southern Loop" of the bus tour, still stifling hot in NYC and we just wanted to get off and walk in the shade. UN building was the next stop so off we hopped and walked down 42nd street towards Grand Central Station. At the junction with 3rd Avenue I snapped a picture of the receeding street and the yellow cab.
Impossible PX680 Test Film
Polaroid SX70 Folding SLR

Keep It Analogue

Brownstone and Water Towers

A morning walk from the Broadway Plaza, round the block via 6th Avenue (The Avenue of the Americas) and back up West 26th Street. The early morning sun was just creating dappled lighting on these classic New York warehouses with the wooded water containers on the rooftops. (low water pressure in Manhatten).
Polaroid SX70 Folder
PX680 Opacification Test Film V4b

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FlatIron

The FlatIron Building set against a bland sky really helps here I feel.
Looks almost like the bow of a ship.

Polaroid SX70 SLR
Impossible Test Film PX680V4 (Opacificaltion Layer Test)

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FlatIron, New York

Our Hotel was just a few blocks away from the iconic FlatIron building. A much, much photographed building, not, however by me!
An early morning stroll before the heat of the day built up with the Polaroid SX70 SLR

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Village Market, New York

It was toward the end of the same hot day, we retreated into this intereting little street market filled with quirky hand made gifts.
I found myself constantly looking up at the NYC skyline and there she was, in her shades, waiting to be photographed.

Polaroid SX70 Folder
Impossible Project PX680 Test Film

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Immigration Hall, Ellis Island

We had queued up for ages waiting in the midday sun for a ferry to take us to Ellis and Liberty Islands. Into Ellis Island Imigration Hall, away from the searing heat, I was immediately drawn to the USA flag and the light streaming in from the high windows.
Out came the SX70 SLR loaded with PX680 test film

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Don't Walk - East Village NYC

Been a hot day in New York, temperatures over 30 degrees and the humidity was high. Like all true English people we went out in the midday sun.
By the late afternoon the sun was a bit cooler and it was time to bring out the SX70 as we walked through the East Village.
Went in some trendy shops, sussed out where the Impossible Project shop and exhibition space was and finally ended up in Chinatown where we had the most wonderful Vietnamese meal.

Polaroid SX70 SLR
Impossible PX680 Test Film

Keep it analogue

Empire State from Madison Square Park

Returned from first ever trip to the USA with loads of instant images from the SX70 Folding SLR, 250 and 103 Land Cameras.
Our hote, the Broadway Plaza was a few blocks up from the flat iron building and about 15 blocks from Times Square. The Hotel is to be recommended in all regards.
Here I had wandered off by myself early in the morning, there were some street cleaners and joggers to keep my company as I made my first exposure using the new Impossible Test Film. This latest incarnation of the "Polaroid-Type" emulsion requires no shielding from light once it spits out of the camera. Finally, the Impossible team are getting close to the original Polaroid performance.
The colour is not optimised but the muted, almost sepia like tones I think work well.

Shot from Madison Square Park looking North up 5th Avenue.

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Anglesey Abbey #3 and #4

Last of the Impossible images, have just printed some from the Holga including a rather nice portrait of one of the volunteer gardeners leaning on his hoe, I will add those tomorrow.

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Anglesey Abbey #2

Another from yesterday's trip to Anglesey Abbey

Polaroid SX70 Folding SLR with the Impossible Project PX 600 UV+ instant film

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Anglesey Abbey #1

An Easter Holiday outing to Anglesey Abbey with the SX70 folder (above) a 127 Brownie loaded with 35mm film and the Holga 120FN with FP4.
I made 4 exposures using Impossible PX600 UV + Instant film, this statue of Pan and his pipes always draws my eye and it's a first with the SX70 SLR

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Two Impossible Images

Long live the Impossible Project...bringing instant photography once again to the masses and making millions of otherwise useless Polaroid Cameras usable again.
Two images here both shot with an SX70 folding SLR

Much like this one.

The Black and White pic uses Impossible PX100 Silver Shade film whilst the bottom one of the "friendly peppers" is made using Impossible PX70 Colour Shade. There is something about the colours, not quite natural, that gives these tiny jewel-like pictures a rather beautiful quality.

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Instant Flowers

If you have a Polaroid 600 typr camera or any SX70 cameras (folding or box plastic) then did you know film is still available? Not from Polaroid, they stopped making it in 2009. Within a year a group of Polaroid enthusiasts and some former Polaroid employees had bought what was left of the Polaroid Machinery and re-engineered Instant Film from scratch. Much of the material that Polaroid had used in their original formulations was not available or too expensive.
What has followed, over the last 2 years has been a remarkable colaboration beteen the Impossible Project and their Customer. Films have been developed, each new issue brings improvements in emulsion, colours, tones and spread - Customers have in effect been beta testers for Impossible.
Visit the Impossible Project at http://www.the-impossible-project.com/

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The Cat in the Hat

Julie had returned home from a successful World Book Day at our Village School, I had to grab the Polaroid SX70 and flash away.

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"Impossible" Fenland Project

A Christmas Eve Drive to Somersham to test out the Impossible project's PX70 Colour Shade film designed for the classic 1979's folding SX70 Camera. This film, like all these experimental films need to be protected from sunlight for the first few seconds after the image has been ejected from the camera. As each image dries out, over days, the colours shift and change.

These unique mindividual works or art need to be dried out thoroughly before the image becomes stable. I use a biscuit tin with several 100g packets of silica gel for a few weeks.

http://www.the-impossible-project.com/

Fenland Project

Been getting heavily into Instant film since the summer time.
This image was made using a 1970s Polaroid SX70 Camera using film from the Impossible Project. This will form part of an ongoing series of instant studies of the fens.