Us
Lisa Toboz
“The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
— John Locke
When I was young, thousands of years ago, it wasn’t at all uncommon to use an instant camera — a Polaroid — to take a photo. There are so many charming tactile associations: there was the satisfying chunk-WHRRR noise the camera made as it cranked out the film. There was the ritual of shaking the film a bit, or whacking it on the heel of your hand, as you waited for it to develop. And then there was the matter of peeling. An image would take shape, right there in your hand, and whatever you’d seen through the lens would manifest as an object you could carry around, paste into a scrapbook, or send to someone far away.
This, when it all began, was a sort of magic. And then it became common. Time changes the course of the everyday, as it always has, and our concept of magic tends to evolve. It either takes on the guise of newer, fresher magic, or it becomes something entirely ordinary and gathers dust on shadowed shelves.
The Polaroid corporation eventually threw in the towel. In 2007 they stopped making instant cameras, then stopped making film shortly after. But then came The Impossible Project: a few people took action and formed a company that produces instant film for those classic cameras, filling the niche created and left behind by Polaroid, delighting photographers all over the world.
And that brings us to today’s featured photo: Lisa Toboz uses film from the Impossible Project, and some wonderful artistic choices, to bring us this portrait of herself and her love.
I’m not personally acquainted with her, so I can only speculate on her thought process. But the actions she took here tell me something about her, and about her way of being. I think she treasures that astonishing little packet of chemistry in her hands. I think she finds poetry in these lush, muted colors, in weeds growing between man-made lines, and in paint peeling from old doors. There is a softness here, a dreaminess, that suggests a gentle embrace of time, all that it represents, and some things that it doesn’t. I think she knew full well that this choice of film and method would lend us a glimpse of something unique, something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Magic, you see, surrounds us like so many fireflies. The trick is learning to recognize it, in both the old ways and the new. And then embrace it all.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Jenn Wilson and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
