Lodge’s Store in PolaBlue

Remember when I said that Polaroid 35mm instant slide film was some of the toughest film I’ve ever worked with?  The high-contrast PolaChrome and PolaBlue films were extremely temperamental, and getting anything that resembled more than just a swirled color blob was nothing short of a miracle?

Well, in the last batch of PolaBlue film, I liked the artistic way the pictures turned out, but the age of the PolaBlue film – which was supposed to be a blue-white contrast, but in fact had aged to a blue-salmon contrast – gave me shots like this.

Too much purplish red.  And not enough detail.  It looks like someone dropped the ink from a ballpoint pen into a vat of Pepto-Bismol.

But if I could find the middle range between the contrasts… and if I could get a batch of PolaBlue that hadn’t gone sour… I might have a shot.  So when another batch of PolaBlue 35mm film came up for auction on eBay, I snagged it.  A few days later, it arrived in my mailbox.

On Sunday morning, I drove to downtown Albany and tried to photograph some local landmarks, including the Lodge’s sign. I figured that the Lodge’s sign would have plenty of contrast – the white letters on a brown background might be just what I want.

My first attempt to get the Lodge’s sign – a photo taken last April – gave me the center picture above.  Too much red, not enough detail.

This time, I stood at the corner instead of on the sidewalk, and I shot for a different perspective.

I then tried to photograph some flowers, as well as some other signage.  Then I took the camera back home and plugged in the Polaroid 35mm auto-processor.  Remember, this is slide film that you can actually develop at home.  Which in itself is kinda cool.  When it works.

PolaBlue gets four minutes in the auto-processor.  Enough time for me to make a sandwich.

And when I came back, the film was done.  I let it dry for a few minutes, then placed it in my Minolta scanner.

And I got this photo.

Am I going to enter this in Altamont? No. I don’t think it’s the type of picture that would work at Altamont.

But if I were to enter it as a non-traditional photograph… let’s say at the New York State Fair…

Maybe… just maybe…