Snap Snap

Parsing the pleasures of instant v. delayed gratification

(Nov. 6, 2008) My family took advantage of this unseasonably warm weather last weekend to go canoeing on Stone Lagoon. As we landed at the boat ramp, after a day of paddling, a small car pulled up. It had no boat rack or trailer, so I was curious about what she was doing on the ramp. The driver got out, popped open the trunk, and pulled out a tripod. Aha! A photographer.

Next she pulled out a flat square box made of wood, so beautiful it could have been a jewelry box. She attached this to the tripod. “Wow,” I said, “that’s some camera.”

GALLERY >

My son snorted in derision. “That’s not a camera.”

“Oh yes it is.” I said. And then he watched with open-mouthed awe as she opened the box and unwound the two-foot bellows. We got to talking to her and found out who she is: Tori Nelson, a photographer from San Diego, who comes up this way occasionally to take pictures. She made her 8 x 10 field camera herself. You can see her work at www.torinelson.com.

Watching her work got me to thinking about the turns that photography has taken since its invention in the 1800s. Today, anybody with a little disposable income can buy a decent digital camera, take some reasonably decent shots and have the prints in their hands an hour later if they go to one of those quick turn-around places. So what drives some people to continue to use the older technology that requires several minutes to set up, a hood to take the shot and some more hours in a dark room to develop the picture?

In contrast to Tori’s approach is a show that will be up this month at the Accident Gallery, titled Death of Instant Gratification: A Polaroid Collective by Britta Gudmunson. A Polaroid is about as far away as you can get from the time consuming process I witnessed at Stone Lagoon, and it does something even a digital camera can’t do — provides you with the final product in moments.

A Polaroid image has a tenuous position in the realm of fine art. Because of its accessibility to anyone with the ability to press a button, and the immediacy of the processing, it’s been looked down upon by photography snobs. However, it has always attracted a cult following, and especially now. You see, earlier this year Polaroid announced that it would no longer be making Polaroid cameras or film. “It was a very heartbreaking day,” said Britta, “but it was also the day that I realized that the time had come for this show.”

Britta said she’d had the idea of a collective of Polaroid images for years but kept pushing back the date because, as she says, “the more film that I took, the more amazing images that I had.” But that all came to an end when Polaroid film became unattainable (at least affordably).

1 2 NEXT PAGE >SHARE