Sometime this (last?) year Fuji stopped selling 20-roll packs of super presto, their glorious 1600asa black and white film. It is still fairly common in these single rolls, which I keep acquiring every time I end up at a Bic or Yodobashi Camera. Overexposed just right the results are gorgeous and the negatives are easy to print. The contrast matches the heat and the grain the humidity of a Japanese summer. That and I like shooting f16 at 1/500 a second out on the streets. A Shallow Depth of Field this hath not.
Been spending a lot of time in Fukagawa this summer. Sunday Onishi sensei invited me along to shoot some festivals around Kiyosumishirakawa and Monzennakacho stations (man they like their long station names in this part of town). Compared to running around Yasukuni shrine pretending to be a photojournalist this was a far more fun way to spend August 15th.
After the first group of children passed where we were standing Onishi turned to me and asked why I thought they were throwing water everywhere.
“… because it washed off the year’s sins or something?”
“No- – because it’s hot out.”
This year was the 「陰祭り」the shadow festival- – sort of a trial run for the actual full-on festival 「本祭り」next summer.
I won’t for a second try to deny the fact that the sting of the absence of Polaroid film has lessened over the past two years. It is an crummy reality that actual polaroid film as was (albeit expensively) available a few years ago is gone. I wish the impossible project fellows the best of luck. I have heard that the film which they have produced is “horrible” on accounts of a Japanese friend who read about it in a Japanese photo magazine, and “really difficult to use” from a friend who has actually shot some of the film. (still waiting for it to show up at Yodobashi Camera to see for myself) Polaroid the company has further watered down their brand by re-badging a Fuji Cheki as a new Polaroid camera for the Non-Japanese market. Which probably is a good thing as increased (steady?) demand for Fujifilm instant film is fine with me. (I have both a Cheki and that bigger one too)
From what I’ve been told, the main trouble with Polaroid being able to produce 600 film was due to the rising costs of materials needed to manufacture the battery that was housed in each and every pack of film. Fujifilm got it right the first time with designing their instant cameras to be powered by readily available AA batteries.
Two years after the loss of Polaroid film, the Yokohama Museum of Art is host to a 126 member strong group show of polaroid pictures entitled 126 Polaroid. Among the 126 photographers you will find work by Nobuyoshi Araki, Naoki Ishikawa, Meisa Fujishiro, Daido Moriyama, among the Big Names. With the exception of about a dozen large format Polaroid pictures, each photographer was allotted space for six pictures (sx-70 or Spectra or 600 film types) matted sharply in two rows. The economy of the show was fitting and the white space between images helped with visual digestion. It’s a little odd seeing polaroids mounted on the wall as big-A art. Like in “Art in frames and with mats”. I say “odd” because part of the charm of polaroids is the intimacy which they foster– both between you and the picture, and you and the person who is in the picture, provided there is one. Polaroids are an experience, and there has never in the history of this particular medium ever been a Bad Picture. It is impossible to ruin an instant photo. Several photographers had presented pictures with roller spots, or corners where the chemistry was unable to reach. These too have their own visual peculiarities which I find fascinatingly beautiful.
One last point about Polaroids- – I don’t have most of my best portraits shot with my SX-70. Often the actual picture holds more importance to the person pictured than it could to the photographer. I really liked the picture below but it is going to mean far, far more to Keiko through the years than it could to me in a box in my apartment.
There is a rad Ume Kayo show up in Omotesando Hills this summer. I collected some thoughts on the whole thing which you can see on Japan Exposures.
