I like feedback. I always take it for what it’s worth; an opportunity to listen and absorb no matter how much I may not want to hear it. I find that it’s just one way of helping me improve on what ever it I just did. Expired Polaroid film is just the thing I was looking for.

It will speak volumes as to what you’ve just done, and will instantly tell you whether your visualization was even close. Non-expired film does the same thing, but puts a larger dent in my pocketbook.

People may be quick to point out that you could very well do the same thing with a digital camera. I’m not adverse to this idea and have done it myself. But there’s just something about loading that 545 holder with a sheet of film and having a printed record of it soon there after. Not to mention, I don’t know of many 4x5 digital cameras that as easy to carry as a sheet of Polaroid.

There is a certain beauty of the Polaroid print. They’re little works of art in and of themselves. I’d like them for just that reason. Type 79 has wonderful pastel like colors that really appease my sense of the scene. Type 57 is something I can shoot and get a rough idea of the gray values of objects, which I can then either go back to to figure out just what kind of exposure I want.

I’m not saying relatively cheap, expired Polaroid film is for everyone. Every photographer has their own method and I’m not saying everyone should run out and do it. The only thing I’m saying is that Polaroid will continue to have a place in my camera case for as long as they keep making the stuff. I’ll even buy unexpired boxes if I have to.