On Monday 29th of September 2011 I received an email from the living legend that is Paul Giambarba - the man responsible for the branding of Polaroid. He is using one of my shots in his “Instant Talent” blog. To quote him “The aim of adding Instant Talent to this blog is to introduce very special talent from all over the world whom I discover as I search the Internet”

This is quite an honour! The image he chose was one my of first wedding polaroids, The shot of Éadaoin & Daniel on the steps of an old country manor in Tipperary catches people by surprise as it is difficult to tell when the image was taken. It could easily be decades old. Paul discusses this ..

He also mentioned that he was in my home town of Waterford in 1955. He did not start work with Poalroid until 1957 but I asked him if he shot any images. He responded “I was shooting 35mm Kodachrome, which surprisingly hasn’t faded much, with Hitler’s old Contax.” I think he meant Zeiss Ikon Contax not his actual property! He is looking for the negatives for me as I write this.

This was a great experience to interact with a person who was so instrumental in making Polaroid the brand it became. The architect of a photographic and cultural phenomenon that is still so strong years after the brand’s demise. A true living legend.

UPDATE

Paul kindly sent me some images from his honeymoon in Ireland in 1955. Shot of Kodachrome 35mm, they still look crisp over 50 years later. These are great scenes:

Ashford Castle Grounds.

Castlehill, Co Tipperary.

O’Connell St, Dublin.

Unknown

60,000 frames, shot over 3 days. Three weeks of planning and three weeks of editing! If you missed the Tall Ships visit to Waterford, here it is in its entirety in 10 minutes.

With thanks to Emmett Cooke for composing and performing the music and Mat Reilly who assisted and helped out with editing. Daragh Treacy looked after the custom engineering.

I plan to write a full blog post outlining how I did this. Until then I will be doing a talk and show about the project at Culture Night 2011 in Greyfriars, Waterford at 10pm on September 23rd. All are welcome. The highlight will be a screening of the show on a 3 metre screen in BluRay. I’m looking forward to it!

The Diana F+ is a box camera made entirely from plastic. Results from this basic tool are often erratic as the camera only has two shutter speeds - (approx) 1/60th of a second and bulb (this allows the user to determine the length of time light is allowed to fall on the film). There are four apertures again approx f11, f16 and f22 with a “pinhole” aperture which is said to be about f128 It is constructed primarily of low-quality phenolic plastics of the type commonly found in toys imported from Asia during the 1960s. Because of wide variances in production quality, combined with a poorly-designed camera body latching mechanism, Diana cameras are predisposed to light leaks onto the exposed film. However these “happy mistakes” are what has made the camera the cult classic it is today. I have had my Diana+ for the last two years and (eventually) I’m a big fan. It “stimulates creative vision without undue reliance upon camera features and technology” Previously I used a 35mm film back with the camera as this film is easy to obtain, develop and even exposes the sprocket holes above and below the main frame. So recently I decided to try 120mm film with it. I’ve always loved the square format which measures 6×6cm. Here are some of those results. All images are straight from scan. The film used was Kodak Ektar 100.