Last Friday, I was wholly engrossed in an article I’d seen online about a man, Jamie Livingston, who took a Polaroid every day for eighteen years, before he died. Scanning through his personal Polaroid diary brought back memories of similar diaries I have kept. For years, my Polaroid cameras have been my perfect traveling companions. Their immediacy helps me to look at a landscape, street scene or every day item with a new objectivity that helps me chronicle the everyday, the mundane, with fresh wonderment. I’ve also enjoyed using them when doing portraits of people on the street as it is nice to be able to give something back, instead of always taking.

Image from “Polaroid Diaries 1″ Southwark, London

Over the years I’ve accumulated books and books worth of images, from various Polaroid cameras, but I have to say, my favourites are the Land camera and the SX70. For the sake of this article, I’ve decided to share a few of my Polaroid Land camera diary entries here.

All of my Polaroid diary entries have the location where the image was taken included, somehow, in the footnotes of the page. From using Letraset, to just using a ballpoint pen, the entries usually give away what my first impressions were of the area via the details I’ve included. The diaries range in size, but most are no bigger than 4″ x 5″ so that the diaries can be carried in a backpack, or even a coat pocket, quite comfortably.

Entry from Polaroid Day Book - La Playa, Barcelona, Spain

Again, this is a very, very, very small sample from some of my  Polariod Diaries.  Looking back, I’m so happy that I’ve taken the time throughout the years to chronicle certain places I’ve been, people I’ve seen, oddities and curiosities with my Polaroid cameras. The visual records I’ve been able to create with my Polaroid are records I’ll treasure always. I also hope some day my chilren will find these records, with the details of where the photos were taken, etc, interesting in such a way as to spark their desire to also learn more about the everyday via the use of photographic means.

More examples of Polaroids taken over the years at various locations.

Polaroid Portraits - Barcelona, Spain	Day trip to Monserrat, Spain	Polaroid Portraits - Barcelona, Spain
La Playa, Barcelona, Spain	Day trip to Monserrat, Spain	Opening of Planet Hollywood, Barcelona, Spain

For more Polaroids, visit www.angelacoulombe.com.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 9:22 AM and is filed under Random Still Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.