Expired Polaroids

My mother-in-law found me a pack of 10-year-expired Polaroid Platinum 600 film at an estate sale. 10 years. It was “best used by 06-2000” if I remember right. But the package was in good shape. No signs of being spilled upon or crumbled up. I opened it and crossed my fingers.

I loaded it in my old SX-70 with a shaky hand.

I fired off the first exposure from this old pack. *ka-click-wurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* And I watched it appear.

Exposure 1 - macro of a little flowering bush

Yeah. It was gonna be a great pack.

Exposure 2 - Beep in the sunshine

Exposure 3 - Sharka's wheel in a dark garage lit by a flashlight

All of the shots had a center area of clarity and an area of bright orangeness flanking the center. Longer exposures made the orange area much more vivid. I had an idea. I reached for the nearest vintage Decepticon…

Exposure 4 - Burn Down the Night

Shockwave enjoyed having his Pola taken. I got *way* lucky with the dead area on this one. This photo was worth the whole pack.

And yet, the ancient battery continued to let me shoot.

Exposure 5 - sky and clouds

Exposure 6 - Icebat ruining an avant-garde light post shot

Blue sky made this film just sing.

Sadly, photos 7 and 8 didn’t come out. 7 was completely dead chemical (the brown). 8 jammed in the camera.

Exposure 9 - Wife in the Sunbeam

Exposure 10 - Addiction

What a magical pack of film. It was one of the most satisfying photographic experiences I’ve had in recent memory. Maybe I’ll take a few packs of 600 out of my fridge stash and let them start aging a little more aggressively…

Thanks for bearing with me and my Polaroid addiction. I promise more car blogging soon.
And thank you again for the wonderful film, Carol!