polaroid photos – Catchpole Creative…

Living, as I do, a stones throw away from the south coast (well, it would have to be a pretty spectacular throw, but still…) I am pretty well placed to investigate the quintessential British tradition that is the beach hut.

Those ones up there are in Littlehampton, West Sussex, they are the beach huts I have photographed most, I keep going back, and I keep finding new ways to photograph them:

Those ones were taken on a dull rainy day, with my iPhone, but even in terrible conditions there is still something about them that makes me want to photograph them. I did, at least try to take one or two different looking photos…

It has to be said, however, that there are more beach huts on the south coast than these. There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of them scattered around in clumps (well, lines) all along the southern edge of the country. During the parts of this summer that we have been allowed out, I have made it my mission to visit them, and photograph them.

I know I am not the only person who does this. But I have fallen in love with these funny little huts and the vast variation that can be found in them. Not only that, they have a lot of pretty compelling details and repeating patterns, two things I am not really able to resist!

I have been out there with both my Nikon D7500 and my polaroid 600, which is almost but not quite from one extreme to another. I took my phone along too…of course 🙂

Needless to say, those photos up there have been taken with my polaroid 🙂

These slightly more modern looking beach huts were found on Worthing sea front. I love them, they are so geometric and interesting. I have tried to photograph them on more than one occasion, this time, I finally got a few photos I am happy with. (taken with my Nikon)

These slightly more traditional and less uniform beach huts are just along from Worthing in Goring, they presented me with some absolutely brilliant rusty details and in one case, a boat… (taken with my Nikon)

This project is likely to go on for a little while, I might give it a proper name and do something interesting with the photos in due course, but for now I am going to just carry on photographing what catches my eye. Then, quite probably going back and photographing it again with a different camera…

We live in a world of digital photography and instant gratification when it comes to seeing the results of your photographic endeavors, not to mention a plethora of very easy ways to alter just about everything about the photo. I love this technology and the freedom it gives to take far more pictures than is really sensible, but I am and always have been a lover of film photography.

I got my first camera when I was 4 and progressed to a film SLR when I was 15. I still have it and it still works 🙂 it looks a lot like that one. My love of photography grew from this little entirely manual camera and I loved it. The only thing I didn’t love was waiting for the film to come back from the chemists…

In the 80s and 90s there was only one solution to all this waiting for photos.

The Polaroid camera.

I always wanted one. I loved the idea of getting my photo developed instantly (well sort of instantly, it takes about 15 mins) but my parents made the point that the photos were not as good as the ones from my SLR and that Polaroids and polaroid film was expensive. They were right of course, so I didn’t get one.

Until last year!

I decided I was going to rush headlong into the world of instant(ish) photography, and fulfil my teenaged self’s dreams (well, passing fancy anyway if not actually dreams). So, some ebay searching and £15 later I ended up with that lovely 1980s red Polaroid 645 CL up there which not only matches my 1980s campervan but also my camping mug! In a fit of Ebay browsing and purchasing, I now own 6 Polaroid cameras. Not all of which I intend to keep…probably…

I am impressed with the way the cameras work, once I learned that you have to clean the rollers on an extremely regular basis…
I have also learned that the original polaroid film, now all expired, does not work very well at all. Luckily for me there is a company called Polaroid Originals, who have bought out the polaroid company and are making new film that works with the original cameras!

I have been playing with these extensively, both colour and black and white and I love the results. Well most of the results, it is still important to have the right conditions 😀 it s doing this sort of thing that makes you realise just how forgiving digital cameras are. Especially if you shoot in RAW!

I am still working out what the right conditions for Polaroids are, and when to slide the little lighter/darker lever around, but I am happy to say I am getting more hits than misses these days…