Polaroid Week

The Flickr blog reported the 'Roid Week 2010 group pool, leaving me with three days left to participate. It just happens that I recently took a stack of pictures on Polaroid film.

Unofficial Flower Week

I started this blog too early, perhaps, since I am not yet printing with my letterpress. I was joking to a friend of mine that it seems like all I want to do is post pictures of flowers and have been trying to resist.

Then, the very next morning Abby Try Again declared it unofficial flower week, so I'm getting my post in just in the nick of time. Independently of 'unofficial flower week' in the blogsphere, automatism and Roe have both recently shared lovely flower posts too.

The Impossible Project

Some time ago, on my facebook profile, I posted a link about The Impossible Project - where Impossible b.v. bought an old Polaroid factory with the intent of making a new kind of analog instant film. Thank goodness, because the last packs of Polaroid sold out quickly at Urban Outfitters and are crazy expensive on eBay.

For some reason, it took me a long time to look at The Impossible Project's shop, where they're selling a collection of "rare analog Polaroid treasures" - limited edition film in cool, colorful boxes designed by Paul Giambarba. Luckily, they're still in stock.

I have a modern Polaroid, so I use the most common film stock: 600. You can still get that old school feeling:

While also being able to benefit from remarkable quality:

I'm excited to finally have some new film on the way, and excited, too, to hear the fate and future of The Impossible Project, which will be announced at a press event in NYC on March 22, 2010.

inspiration: yellow like the sun.

Winter must be getting to me because I am craving yellow. I've chosen (as in: folded the corners of catalog pages) a new yellow rug for the kitchen and yellow chairs, which my husband has yet to see. No doubt he will veto these choices, so in the meantime there are yellow tulips, which have been cheery in the dull, bleak mid-winter light.

I love the combination of film, sunlight, and flowers. The light and blooms remind me of Vermeer (although, to be clear, I'm drawing no comparison between myself and Vermeer), who seemed to rely heavily on natural light in otherwise dark and conceivably cold rooms:

Vermeer seems like a wintertime painter for some reason.

I think these pears want to be poached. Here's a recipe for making poached pears.

polaroid notes.

Polaroids are experiencing a sort of Renaissance right now, even as the remaining stock of film is pretty expensive. I never had my own Polaroid camera, although my mother managed to score some cameras and film for our wedding:

(photos by our photographer, Pei-Pei Ketron of Penelope's Loom)

We had our guests take pictures of themselves with the cameras and slide them into a guestbook, where they also wrote a note. It was really successful and fun to look through later.

Polaroids remain popular, I think, because they capture the mood or feelings of a moment. The minute details of an image become less important, and certainly less clear. A Polaroid is like a memory; fuzzy but evocative. So, what could be better than the marriage between Polaroid photos and note cards?

Chronicle Books has released a curated set of Polaroid photos as note cards. Here's a little preview of some of my favorites:





Even better, these Polaroid notes by Fieryeyed Photography on Etsy, are images of Italy, which is still my reigning favorite country despite not having been in 10 years. I came across these thanks to Pia Jane Bijkerk's blog.


As much as I love letterpress printing, there are some things a platen press just can't do.