kitchen sink # 27 / polaroid ~ more fun than a Barrel of Monkeys

kitchen sink sunlight ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
hipstamatic + grungy • click to embiggen
polaroid illustration for Pittsburgh Magazine • click to embiggen

Back in the good ol'days of analog picture making, I was a dedicated practitioner of manipulated SX-70 polaroids. Most of those illustrations were made for consumer publications such as Pittsburgh Magazine. A handful were made for commercial / advertising clients and a bunch were made just for monkeying around. In either case, making those illustrations was more fun than playing the Barrel Full of Monkeys* game.

Unfortunately (IMO), those fun picture making days are long gone inasmuch as Polaroid SX-70 film is now nothing more than a distant memory. CAVEAT: I have yet to try the new Impossible SX-70 film. The film was terrible at first but there have been steady improvements so it might just be possible that happy days are here again, albeit rather expensive.

In any event, I have been monkeying around with a couple iPhone apps which can be used for making "creatively" modified digital pictures. Of course, there is no hand work involved in the making of these images such as there was in the making of the Polaroid illustrations. Consequently, the process seems rather "canned" and that basically removes the individual uniqueness of the old analog process. While I have not explored the possibilities of the dizzying array of picture modifying apps, they all do seem to revolve around canned effects.

That written, I must confess that my monkeying around in the barrel of apps has reignited my infatuation with modified images. I can not adequately explain that infatuation (then or now) other than to write that I just like the way some of these images look. That explanation flies in the face of my long held belief that the laying on of effects on a picture does not a great picture make. Which kind of makes it a guilty pleasure of sorts ... something you know you shouldn't do but go ahead and do it anyways just because it's fun.

While I wrestle with that dilemma or perhaps come up with a valid rationalization for the making of those pictures (all the while hoping that the gods of contradictory reasoning don't smite me where I stand), you can check out the results of my monkeying around on Instagram under the name of adklandscapist. Which is another thing - social media - I swore I would never do.

FYI, I am making these images with the Hipstamatic camera app - Jane lens + KodotX Grizzled "film" - and modifying the results with the Grungy "un-enhancement" app.

* never played Barrel Full of Monkeys. My favorite who-the-hell-thought-this-up game, which I still have (the original version) and play, is Pigmania.