INSTANTaneous

The ability to take photos and share them with our friends and family has become more accessible than ever before. The average person owns a smartphone and therefore owns a fully functioning camera with the ability to manipulate any photo and send it to whomever they choose. Popular sharing social media services like “Facebook” are useful to keep family up to date, but other online services like “Instagram” are creating an identity for the photographer and simultaneously curating mini-galleries for each user. This series displays my own personal identity, and these images are inspired by visuals that have intrigued my day-to-day life. Therefore at some point, every image seen in this series has been posted onto my “Instagram” account.

I have taken images with my mobile phone (iPhone 6) and have edited them using a surprisingly powerful mobile application called “VSCOcam” for over the past nine months. I have tried to explore the boundaries of mobile photography and tap into the quick and easy nature of sharing images on a day-to-day basis. My main intention is to blend the current form of instant photography with instant photography and technology from a different era. This became possible with the use of the “Fujifilm Instax mini SHARE SP-1 printer”, which allowed me to print off the mobile images I took and print them off onto a piece of Fujifilm Instax mini film. This film plays as an homage to Polaroid film and is both a current and thriving example of how instant photography was once viewed. I want to show off the strong visual esthetic of the instant film, and I believe the best way to achieve this is to show images that would not conventionally be displayed on a medium that is primarily used for informal or archival use. These images were originally taken as one single image on my mobile phone and were then broken up into eight different images to be displayed in a collage-like style, fully utilizing the look and esthetic of both the image and film.

The subject matter of the photographs presented is structure, colour, and abstraction. The images resemble shapes, abstract visuals, and a variety of structures. I want to show the beauty in these simple objects and spaces and present them in a way the viewer may never think they would. An interesting abstraction is created for the viewer when the eight different pieces of instant film are viewed as one single image. This is meant to display an awareness of shape and structure, all while providing multiple ways to experience the image being presented to the viewer. This subject material has become a prevalent source in my photography, and I knew that it would also find a perfect home in this project. I have worked with instant film before, so I am pleased to be able to bring together two styles and mediums that I hold close to my heart and use them in a style that I view as my own. This project is also meant to bring together two forms of instant photography from the past and the present, and display them in a way that can resonate with either user of that respective technology.