I've been taking portraits with my Polaroid Spectra camera since the mid-80s while living in San Francisco. I always loved the rich, vibrant colors and the intimacy that I was able to capture as well as the magical quality of there only ever really being one original photo. The only dowfall was that shooting w/ polaroid film was expensive. In the 80s it was roughly a dollar per photo, today it is about $1.30 per image.
Needless to say, I shot sparingly and composed my shots carefully so as not to waste film and the results were usually fantastic. But then I stopped....
In 1993 I gravitated to NYC and found myself on an actual career path that went from Scholastic, Estee Lauder and ultimately landing a "dream job" at Nickelodeon where I worked as a digital designer for 3 years on that hellishly popular animated kids show, Blue's Clues. It all started to suck shit, so I quit, moved to Baltimore and picked up my Polaroid camera again!
The people of Baltimore inspired me so much that when I first moved here three years ago, I thought that a photo documentation of these beautiful people would be a great idea. I instantly loved the lack of pretentiousness, the unique visual flair that everyone seemed to have and the HAIR.
THE PROJECT:
Eventually the idea to document the wonderful faces and people of Baltimore resurfaced and now I've got the project underway and have the support of the Baltimore City Paper who is hosting the Polaroid Portrait Project In Your Face, on their website.
My goal is to upload a different Polaroid portrait daily for the entire year. My first image was uploaded on July 16th, 2005 and my last will be July 15th, 2006.
After the project is completed, I plan on having a gallery show with each of the photos represented.
I'm very excited to have an outlet, audience and support for what I think will be an amazing piece of work. I want to thank everyone for their continued support of this project. I especially want to thank all of the people who have graciously allowed me to stick my camera in their faces--and those whose personal space I have yet to violate.
I am also grateful to Cooper's Camera Mart on Harford Rd. for sponsoring this project! If you shop there, PLEASE tell them Jim, the defekto polaroid guy sent you!
See some of my early Polaroids here.
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