No Vacation Taken
Project Brief
I was on location in California when I learned that my Grandfather had passed. He was like a father to me and the sudden loss revealed all the things that I would have liked to have done together, but now couldn’t. While I was sitting on the beach in Monterey, I recalled that as close as we were, I’d had never had a seaside vacation with him. So I walked the beach the next day, using a Polaroid camera and made photographs of a vacation that never was. Archetypical images of what a beach vacation with my Grandfather would have looked like if it had occurred.
It was a wonderful experience on a number of levels. The Polaroids let me make an image and give the person a black and white print right then. It was always warmly received, while I dropped the negative into tub of sodium sulphite solution. The negatives scanned and printed beautifully with soft silvery tones and the tell tale Polaroid edges.
Old Polaroid cameras had unique looks and this one was particularly battered. It had a habit of slipping out of focus resulting in images that mimic memories in their fluidity with parts and pieces that render with a hyperclear focus.
