I spotted these photo albums at the Lomography store on Eighth Street. It’s an old idea—photos on a wheel like that. I have an album of my grandma’s that looks a little like this. I particularly was interested in the very Rolodex-y nature of this effort. Looks like a fun way to organize photo prints: get a Rolodex card punch (you mean you don’t already have one?!), a couple of cool vintage Rolodexes, maybe some tabs so you can organize it by date or event, and voila. I may try making one on my own. I’ll report back.
Children, way back when when I was a teenager—we’re talking 1990s—-this is what we used to print photographs.
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Beautiful photo by Lee Friedlander. Funny how, through the years, both television screens and Hollywood leading ladies have gotten more flat and angular. Bye-bye, rounded curves.
56 Converstion with Dandara, my 8-year-old niece, while we are looking at an illustration in OBSOLETE. The drawing is of a roll of 35mm film.
Me: What are these things in the picture?
Dandara: It's tape. Like from a tape recorder.
Me: Yeah? Tell me more.
Dandara: It's coming out. It's like when you take pictures there used to be tape. Or something.
Me: You sure that's what it is?
Dandara: Well, I don't know. Maybe it's a battery.
Between 1979 and 1997, photographer Jamie Livingston took a Polaroid every day. These pictures captured important moments (his battle with cancer, his wedding…) but they also documented all the in between moments that give out lives texture. This image is from the day I was born. I’m a narcissist like that.
It’d be hard to do a project like this today, if only because Polaroid film is no longer manufactured. Digital photography has many advantages, but it’s awfully easy to take 50 photos and then to erase 49. The one left over is the ideal, not the reality. With his Polaroid, Livingston only had one shot a day. No re-dos. Kind of like real life.
