Spring Polaroid Week 2022 | Urizen Freaza

Dear FSC friends, this is Urizen Freaza.

Polaroid Week and this roundup always make me think about what's so special about instant photography. The first time someone asked me why I shot polaroid, I didn't know what to reply. At the time analogue was supposed to be dead and all this stuff was hipster nonsense that people did to make themselves feel special. And this is what my friend thought I was doing. And I hated that. As one of those 'wit of the staircase' moments, I believe this is why I keep obsessively asking myself this question: 'why polaroid?' Even today. So next time I might have a better answer (at least better than none).

My answer today is: anticipation.

Apparently, research has shown that anticipating a holiday you are planning brings you more joy than remembering the actual holiday after it happened. If you think about it, it's not surprising at all. Happiness is in the waiting room to happiness, they say.

And well, there is for sure no anticipation in a digital snapshot, nor in any other aspect of modern life (I'm sounding here like I'm 100 years old). There's not even a split of a quantum of a moment between taking the shot, turning around whatever the screen, and seeing it. It means nothing. A polaroid #1. costs a fortune and #2. forces you to... *wait*.

Oh those agonizing minutes! It is work! Sweaty emotional work! Will something appear? Is it underexposed? What did I mess up this time? The focus, the framing? And that polaroid is not fully as you expected, it feels almost as if it never is! But sometimes, yes, just sometimes, it's better than you ever could have imagined.

That's magic, that's happiness.

Here's again a respectfully imperfect roundup of the photos tagged with #fscpolaroid on instagram during Spring Polaroid Week 2022. Please go check the artist's profiles, and if you like what you see, follow them and show them love. And most importantly, check out the Polaroid Week pool on Flickr, on Twitter, and on Instagram .

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Urizen Freaza was born in Tenerife in 1982 and is since 2010 based in Berlin. He's a self-taught photographer and film-maker. Self-taught meaning that this is a path he's still walking, while hoping there is always more path to walk. He's a member of the Film Shooters Collective and part of the team behind the analogueNOW! festival in Berlin. See more of his work on his website and on Instagram.

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Soledad | Kevin Provost

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I was looking at the photos I had taken and this quote from Mexico’s acclaimed poet Octavio Paz came to mind:

“To live is to be separated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another."

I freelance as a TV camera operator. I had worked on a number of food and travel shows, and in 2015 I joined the crew of the PBS “Pati’s Mexican Table.” Every year we would travel to a new region of Mexico and spend a few weeks exploring the area. As was often the case, while on these work trips I was carrying around my Ricoh GR1, a small point and shoot 35mm film camera.

I started using point and shoots on my trips because I knew I couldn't pass up the chance at documenting my travels in some way, but when you're carrying a television camera around all day, and all your thoughts are about shooting, the last thing you want to do is repeat the same process the moment you put the other camera down. I realized if I was using a point and shoot, there was no technical thinking on my part, I could just grab a shot and not have to go into my work mindset. It’s probably the most instinctual process I’ve ever done as a photographer. I see a moment and capture it. No thinking. Not worrying about menus, what lens I have on, if the battery needs to be charged, and since I have a limited supply of film, I’m usually just taking one picture and I can’t check to see if I liked it immediately. It’s a real pure way to capture a moment and only be thinking about the moment itself.

I especially loved doing this in Mexico, where things are so vibrant and beautiful while being weathered and used. I love the juxtaposing aesthetic that I seem to find there. I had no grand plan with the photos, they were merely things that caught my eye and I was so busy with work there, I never had much time to think about what kind of images I was collecting.

It wasn’t until the boredom of the pandemic lockdown that I actually looked at the images with some thought. I had over five years worth of trips to Mexico and as I looked at them all as a whole, I couldn’t believe how much they felt in tune with each other. Perhaps it was the state of the lockdown, or the perspective of a foreigner in a new land, or something I unconsciously seek out, but I noticed all the images had an inherent loneliness to them. Quiet scenes of a place or short moments with someone alone, they had a solitude to them. I thought of the poem I referenced before and the whole thing screamed “book” to me.

I had never self-published anything before, but the idea of sharing these moments in this new context got me really excited. The process of finding a publisher that could give me a good quality book while keeping the cost at a minimum took a long time, but after months of test books I finally found someone I was happy with. Two hundred books off the presses and here we are! I’m so excited for people to see these images and enjoy the quiet journey each page turn gives.

Photos made with a Ricoh GR1 and Kodak Portra 400.

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See more of film photographer Kevin Provost’s work on his website - where you can also snap up a copy of his book! Connect with him on his Instagram, too.