Bill Wolff Photography

Foggy Morning Polaroid Photos at Lums Pond State Park

March 18, 2012

This weekend the fog came in thick both mornings and stayed for hours (today until around 10:30). Wendy was off so I was able to get out with the Polaroid and make some photos in the fog. Now that the barn has been razed, I’m no longer photographing it, and I exhibited some images at Colourworks, I have decided to focus my attention on Lums Pond State Park for the time being. The reasons are many: it is beautiful during all seasons, it has an incredibly diverse ecosystem surrounding the pond, it is 5 minutes away, Wendy has a strong connection with it as she has been kayaking there for many years, and I really enjoy walking Hydan and riding (with Hydan soon) its many paths.

It’s been a while since I’ve taken out the Polaroid. Now that the Chocolate film is sold out on the Impossible Project web site (something I attribute to this video of a The Decemberists “Down by the Water” which, though I love the song, used 1000s of images) the film is extremely hard to come by and I’m getting stingy with the 30 packs I have left. I used 3 packs this weekend. The first pack (used Saturday) worked great up to image 6 and then mis-pulled and the rest got misaligned. The first pack on Sunday was a concern out of the box. Usually the packs have a nice amount of air in them. This one was as if it has been shrink-wrapped; no air at all. Sure enough, the black cover paper was very hard to pull out and the first tab broke off, as did the second, and third. Rather than fight it, I switched packs. The next pack worked perfectly (as most of them do), and because of my stinginess I passed-up many shots and there are two exposures left.

The conditions for the photos were essentially the same: morning, foggy, 50 or so degrees, and I developed the film for 55 seconds. They are all unedited. I’m starting to keep the paper attached to the images and on Saturday I had some goop issues. I didn’t have anything to wipe the goop off with. Sunday was much better as I had a paper towel. Still, the moisture in the air resulted in the images taking longer to dry, which let to a few sticking together.

The first four were made on Saturday, March 17, and the rest Sunday, March 18. You can also see them in my Lums Pond Flickr set. Enjoy!

These last two images teach me that I can get closer to subjects than the viewfinder suggests. A beauty of photography is that every shoot teaches me something.

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