Test Shots

Our first idea for this project was to use polaroid film to play with perspective using a heart shape made with the hands framing a subject which relates to one of the core values of The Body Shop. We had a meeting at college where we discussed the strengths of this idea along with one of our tutors and we decided to carry on with the polaroid/instant film look of the project but to make it more creative. Here are a few of our initial test images where we were superimposing digital images onto polaroid frames:

We decided to use polaroid images like our initial idea, but this time to photograph the core values of The Body Shop using polaroid but then to place these images within an environment reflecting the subject on the polaroid frame such as….

…A polaroid image of the family pet, say a dog sat on the couch and then stick the polaroid to an object where you would normally see polaroids such as on the fridge door, a noticeboard etc. We will then play with the creative possibilities of the scenes by using alphabet fridge magnets to create the image text for the image value.

So first up, acquire some real polaroid film and a camera…

The camera was easy to get hold of but seeing as polaroid went out of business in 2008, the film is becoming more and more rare. We ended up paying £15 for a 12 shot polaroid 1200 film which is quite steep but it had to be done.

The film arrived in the post and I loaded it into the camera, lights came on, it made noises, I pressed the shutter to let the camera push the crdboard darkslide out… no darkslide came out.

It turns out that the camera is slightly faulty and cannot grip the film/darkslide properly after taking a shot so the film is being exposed but then the frame is not being ‘spat’ out by the camera so basically we need a change of plan!

I managed to take a couple of shots on the polaroid but with great difficulty…..

As you can see, the images aren’t great and the camera was working when it wanted to, hence the random picture of me haha.

The film had an expiry date of 10/2008 and i shot these images in 12/2009 the chemicals do not seem to have activated properly towards the bottom of the images, also it seems there is a problem with the shutter sync speed with the built-in flash.

here are a couple of images which were shot and exposed severl times without the camera spitting out the image so I had to go into a dark room and remove the piece of film by hand, so the chemical pouch was not passed through the rollers and the image was not developed properly…..

All a bit of a let down for over £1 per shot… Time to change the plan again, not much time left till the unit deadline now though :S.