POL_AROIDZ

the story behind

Born 1969, I live a conventional life with a mundane job -

I've never been a photographer and I never owned an analogue camera. As almost everybody, I occasionally took some pictures with my smartphone using filters and edits for the best possible posthoc results. But with all those endless possibilities of editing and optimizing, I quickly got bored and dissatisfied.

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There was a day in August of 2019 when I coincidentally read something about the renaissance of instant photography in the wake of the still growing vintage ​movement. A few days later, I bought my first Polaroid camera - and I was addicted from the first shot.

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I love the slowness of preparing the process of photographing: looking through the viewfinder, considering the lighting and exposure, working with nothing more than one or two basic settings, pressing the shutter button and waiting for the picture to be moved out by the rolls ...

I love to wait in some eager anticipation to get a first glance on the freshly developed picture, coming to life almost in real time.

I love the concept of the uniqueness of the entire process.

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But since I'm still no skilled analogue photographer, there were (and still are) numerous pictures with failures and flaws - but I couldn't ever bring myself to throw them away. Therefore, I started experimenting with different methods to manipulate those pictures, treating them with heat, color, drain cleaner, chlorine bleach and some rather aggressive chemicals, soaking them in red wine, balsamic vinegar and soups of reactive ingredients -

 - to transform them into something new.

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