Grandma's Window

This Polaroid is from about a year ago. The light just reminded me of the lovely weather we've been having so I thought it was appropriate to post it today. 

Grandma's Window © Amanda Kilton 2008 

Chuck and Bill at Palisade Park

Here is the long awaited return of my other family! This slide is from the their 1955 visit to Palisade Park New Jersey. This photo of brothers Chuck (age 11) and Bill I believe was taken by their father EJR, a family tree and what I have been able to figure out about their past can be seen in these  older posts. 

"... ceases to grow and, with us, heads toward oblivion"

I Recently was reading a wonderful article about the demise of Polaroid to digital photography in The New York Times that got to the root of what many of us love about Polaroid so much. You can read it in it's entirety here. I especially enjoy this quote, "... that was part of the beauty of the Polaroid. Mystery clung to each impending image as it took shape, the camera conjuring up pictures of what was right before one's eyes, right before one's eye. The miracle of photography, which Polaroids instantly exposed, never lost its primitive magic. And what resulted, as so many sentimentalists today lament, was a memory coming into focus on a small rectangle of film." 

This past fall I was on a mini adventure to Cape Cod when we pulled off the road to make a photograph of two wonderful plastic chairs in a stand of trees. After I snapped a few and was getting ready to head back to the car I spotted this jaw bone stuck in one of trees. It clearly had been placed there by someone, very carefully wedged in. I really enjoy the way that people interact with their landscape creating markers of their home. The human interruption of nature, when their touch is connected and calculated, that is what makes it so wonderful. 

Jaw Tree © Amanda Kilton 2008

Melainotype, Ferrotype or Tintype?

Actually all three names describe the same process. I picked up this tintype at the flea market last summer. The tintype is a wet plate photographic process, in which a piece black enameled or varnished tin (in some cases iron) is coated in a liquid collodion to make an exposure. The image is technically a negative but because of the dark background it appears to be a positive. This technique for image making was first described in France in 1853 and patented in the United States in 1856, however with the development of the amateure camera it began fading in popularity by the end of the 19th century.

 

Further information on the tintype can be found on this web page.

Endless Landscape

Just after Thanksgiving when I returned to Boston I was passing time in Coolidge Corner at Eureka . It's a tiny little shop fantastically packed full of all kinds of puzzles and board games. I had been in there before under similar circumstances of just waiting for another store to open. So I went in thinking I was just going to tinker around when I spotted this tiny box on a table in the center of the store. 

Obviously my attention was grabbed by the the title! What a treasure I can now create an endless number of landscapes in my house, at my desk or on my coffee table seeing all kinds of wonderful history in the land and people with out ever going out side! I purchased them with out much thought. 

When I got it back to my apartment and started to play around with the tiny cards, shuffling them about, I wanted to know more about them. So I turned to the trusty google and Wikipedia. As it turns out these little cards have quite the history. The Endless Landscape is also known as a polyorama or myriorama which means multi view, and was a popular 18th and 19th century storytelling game. They are made of a series of paintings that are pieces of a panorama and can be rearranged over and over again because the edge of each card has a horizon and a landscape element that will match up with any other card in the set. 

According to Wikipedia the creation of the endless landscape games was "... all part of a wider interest in viewing landscape as panorama, and in new ways presenting 'spectacular' scenes."

Wikipedia also describes the early card sets as being made up of "people, buildings and other compatible backgrounds" that could be laid out in many different arrangements "allowing a child to create a variety of imaginary landscapes." Some early ones that the cite specifically depicted English and Italian landscapes. 

Here is one example of the many landscapes I created over the last few weeks. 

Polaroid for Shelby

                                                      

 

My Friend Shelby recently made a lovely post on her blog  about Food & Books Restaurant that made reference to me and my Polaroidness. So I thought I would post it. I've been working on a Polaroid series since last spring and hopefully will be posting some more of that work as I get back into the blogging. 

Food & Books dinning room © Amanda Kilton 2008 

Bringing Back the Blog.

I've been on a mission to have an experience that was worthy of bringing back the blog. It's been so long since the last post that I thought it really needed to be something good. 

So here it goes! 

On my latest visit home I took the train into New London and then took a cab to meet my father at his work. He wasn't quite ready so I loaded my things into his pick up truck and waited around for a bit. Once he was all set we were heading to town to pick up the turkey and other tid bits for Thanksgiving. He came out of the shop, hopped into the truck and turned the key. Nothing happened not even a click. He did this a few more times and still nothing. He popped the hood and got out of the truck stared in for a second and then disappeared behind the truck only to return with a wrench. I thought this was to turn something. No. He slid under the truck and it sounded like he was just hitting something. When he re appeared from under the truck he tossed the wrench into the back and climbed back in and turned the key. Nothing. At this point he could have gotten mad but really what was the point so we were just laughing. 

He opened up the door and got out of the truck placed one of his hands against the back side of the frame and the other still on the steering wheel and pushed the truck backwards. Then pushed it forward a tiny bit, jumped in and turned the key. He was trying to pick up just enough speed that it would pop start. On the first try nothing. So he did it again, at this point it became clear that it was going to take the two of us. 

So I jumped out and positioned my self the same way he was and we pushed the car back and changed the direction we were pointed so we were oriented over a tiny hill thinking if we could pick up a bit more speed that we would get it going. One last time we pushed it back and then forward, first I jumped in and then my Dad, and we were on our way.