A couple weeks ago when I was shooting the still life shots of the pears on my kitchen table, two of the negatives that I shot were on Polaroid Type 55 film. This film is now obsolete, and the few sheets I have left would probably command a high price, if I chose to sell them... but I won't. I really like the look of this film, particularly for botanical and still life images. For those not familiar with this product, it is an instant film packet that yields both a negative and a positive print. Unfortunately if you expose adequately for the negative, the print is rather light and useless.... But it is the negative that I want anyway. It self develops in a minute or so once you pull the packet through the rollers of a polaroid holder and release the developing agent. Then negative then needs to be cleared in a bath of sodium sulfite, washed and dried. I love the stuff and will have to ration the remaining 20 or so sheets that I have left.
As I was shooting this image I forgot that the image area of the film is a little smaller than 4" x 5". As a result, the pears are a little close to the border, and the one stem almost got clipped. The other shots that I took on traditional 4" x 5" sheet film will have a little more "breathing room". The border of this scan is the edges of the actual negative. You can see streaks and patterns from the developing agent that was spread across the film during development. And on the right side are a series of circular marks from the perforated paper carrier that held the film in the packet. Kind of a gimmicky look that some photographers include in the image when the print it. I've included it here for context but wouldn't include it if I actually printed the image. I'm sure I'll print at least one negative from this session but will wait until I process all of them before deciding which is best. In all likelihood I expect it might be an alternative process print of one of the bigger 8x10 negatives.
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