Since I’m back from the US I’ve been in some kind of photographic slump. That probably was to be expected: The photos came easy to me in America, the desire to hold on to what you see was overwhelming and the light triggered some kind of chemical reaction with the camera… Being back in Germany, I ended up with the photographic equivalent of a giant hangover. Haven’t done anything since. I brought back an SX-70 I bought at a thrift store for 10$. The camera is probably broken, as it overexposes everything and the focus is off: Still, I’ve been doing nothing much but taking Polaroids in the past weeks.
It doesn’t really help the faithfulness of the photos to use expired film and I also had to learn that Impossible’s Instant film is very sensitive to heat: With temperatures hovering around 30°Celsius you better put your camera into the fridge when you are not using it…
Yet, I still like the feel of photographing like this: It is slow as hell and as it is also expensive as hell I ponder endlessly about a picture (only then after an hour or so to shout I don’t give a fuck and just shoot) – it is “pictures as an object”, which is a welcome change to the ephemeral feel of the digital image and my constant feel of too much of everything…
