picture window # 63 / civilized ku # 2775-76 ~ slipping effortlessly through life

dirty window ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen
Kodak tower in the rain ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen
landmarks ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen

Polaroid's Sx-70. It won't let you stop.Suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look ... Now you press the red electric button. Whirr ... whoosh ... and there it is. You watch your picture come to life, growing more vivid, more detailed, until minutes later you have a picture real as life. Soon you're taking rapid-fire shots - as fast as every 1.5 seconds! - as you search for new angles or make copies on the spot. The SX-70 becomes part of you, as it slips through life effortlessly. ~ Polaroid advertisement (1975)

I have 4 SX-70 cameras 3 of which I acquired during the Polaroid-SX-70-pictures-as-art era. At that time, SX-70 cameras, which had been discontinued, where selling for as much as $ 500-1,000US in NY and other art hotspots. I found mine - mint, working condition - in flea markets, where the sellers had no idea of their worth - they were just old cameras after all - for $20-30US.

While I wasn't "making art" per se, I used them for many commercial assignments (mainly editorial work) and a multitude (thousands) of spontaneous everyday snapshots of family, friends, and just knocking around stuff. It would not be unreasonable to write that I was well and truly addicted to the Whir and Whoosh of Polaroid picture making.

So it was with much sadness and disappointment that I witnessed the end of SX-70 film.

That written, the digital picture making domain does have some "whirl and whoosh" characteristics which promote the "it won't let you stop ... suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look" effect. Not the least of which is the fact that the digital picture making domain doesn't set you back a nearly a buck a shot as did the Polaroid picture making domain. And, without a doubt, as the picture appears on a back-of-the-camera LCD screen, it does promote a "search for new angles" (and other picture making considerations).

Case in point. I just returned from Rochester where I went for lunch with some former classmates. On the short overnight trip, I added 20 - plus variations - new pictures to my finished folder. In a real sense, I did see pictures (nearly) everywhere I looked and my cameras (paraphrasing) "became part of me, as they (and I) slipped effortlessly through life."

FYI the landmarks in the landmarks picture are: Mercury (aka: Hermes), The Wings of Progress, and the Main Street bridge, which at one time was lined with buildings on its north side (the side pictured).