Ode to a Polaroid!
My fascination with Polaroid technology goes years back.I remember one year, on a sunny Palm Sunday (sunny as it should be) I was on my grandfather's shoulders (as every kid should be) carrying a giant white candle, when one of my technology buff uncles joined us for the march. It was a beautiful day, everybody was prettied-up, and parents were hailing their kids with pictures...
Everybody had a camera, but his was exceptionally more interesting than most. He always had the "top-of-the-line" toy to bring along, and tickle our greatest curiosity and amusement.
- Look here... Smile! he said...
click!
Soon enough, he pulled a square format sheet of film from the bottom of the camera, and there I was... just as I had been a few moments ago... on my grandfather's shoulders.
A photograph usually freezes the moment! One snap and your present becomes an immediate past, with only a mental representation; your memory... You can still revisit it and reminisce whenever you call for that particular instance in your memory, or through another rather physical representation... the picture!
Your photo repertoire (album, digital folder...) becomes an indexification of your past in your memory. You pull out a picture, and there it is... Flashback to the past!
But this photosensitive process is a little different in a Polaroid. To my mind, It even carries more meaning and depth... and is actually funny in a way! By definition and theoretically Polaroid cameras are supposed to be instant cameras, they are everything but:
Your history "appears" in front of you... it surprises you... almost like remembering glimpses of your past after amnesia... Snaps and shots... your past is fragmented, indexed on paper, and you take on past knowledge as you move through these indexes... these icons...
Polaroids are visually and sensibly connected and layered with the past. This memento, give us the chance to, instantly, see what we have seen...
We wait in the present, which actually is the immediate past, for something from the past to appear in the near future, that is soon to become present, and then past...
Labels: memories_ nostalgia
posted by _z. @ 11:06 PM
1 Comments:
ok :)
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