Tortured.

All the new black and white images are available as fine art prints.

Contact me for details.

Memory failure.

When asked to test Impossible's new film I instantly thought of all the wonderful things I could try.
But fascinated by my own imagination I merely reverted to type and just went and found some old friends.

I bore myself to death sometimes...

Check Polanoid or Flickr for some of the more remarkable things to be done with this film.

A resource for the lazy.

The super industrious Darcy Perkins has compiled a grandslam resource for anyone interested in the new Impossible films. So quit listening to bile from vile Flickr trolls and read Darcy's great little summary instead. Film released today we hear.

I don't mind people linking my shots as long as they're not trying to make cash out of them. But give some credit would ya? And please link back here, Flickr or Polanoid. Else, I will set the wrath of the Baskervilles on you.

Windswept and disinterested.

More Impossible Project test shots.
PX100 Silver Shade for your SX70 cameras available tomorrow!

Impossibly foggy tree.

Instant film has a future.

Viva la revolution.

We can get on with our lives now.

Who said it couldn't be done?

After years of weeping into my cornflakes at the thought of running out of film, those crazy chaps at Impossible have saved me. Show them some love, will you.

I've got a few more test shots of the new film, but you'll have to wait for them...

Happy to answer any questions about this beautiful film.

Like nothing you've seen before.

Kook. A surfing newspaper. A bit like the Financial Times, but different.
Pop along down the road to buy it.

A view up the Camel :: For sale

Acrylic and Polaroids on canvas with clear varnish. £80. Or, you know, offers.

Having a clear out.

Selling some things. First up £70. Acrylic and Polaroids on canvas with a clear varnish.

More coming soon. Leave a comment if you're interested. Haggling welcomed. Hags welcome.

Not enough nonsense.

She fell down the rabbit hole and we all fell with her. But there the trip ended.

What should have been a delightful few hours of nonsense-filled psychadelica instead turned into a blobby parade of nothingness. All so very dull. And all so very unnecessary.

"Why, sometimes i've believed six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll

Croeso y Polaroid.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine attending a Polaroid seminar in Shirley Bassey's Cardiff.

But, I did. And happily so did about 50 other people. Even more surprisingly, not all of them were complete addicts or nutcases either; some just had a passing interest (of course this may well lead to full-fledged habit in the near future). This made sitting in the freezing, glass-walled room in an elegant arcade, I used to hunt for trinkets in, all the more interesting.

I don't have a lot to say. If you didn't go, you should have, but if you want to find out a bit more then read on...

It all kicked off with a bit of Polaroid cultural reference pointing from academic Peter Buse. Dam, imagine getting paid to research Polaroid?? I'm tempted to apply for a PhD studentship. I suppose many, or all, of us have attempted to answer the cultural significance of Polaroid question for themselves but it's tricky to not get wrapped in personal meaning and forget the wider cultural experience. How to define a phenomenom whose rainbow stretches all the way from bubblegum pop culture to champagne-swilling fine art? These are the questions Peter wrestles with.

Next up was Mikael Kennedy. I'm sure many of you have also trapsed all over his intriguing Passport to Trespass blog. Mikael showed a slide show from his wanderings around the US while trying to put into words why he did what he did and how he did it. No mean feat. What gets me most about Mikael's Polaroids is there's no gimickry. He never takes the cheap or the easy path to beauty. What you share is the raw experience of a person's life through hundreds of 3 inch squares.

Marc Arkless has spent the past 30 years as a serious Polaroid "user" with a particular fascination with the SX-70. He's a big guy and I particulalry enjoyed how a serious technical photographer can become so wrapped up in Polaroids that are for the large part empty vistas of blue seas and skies. True escapsim and something I can identify with.

Probably the most interesting talk per se was Colin Harding of the National Media Museum. I just didn't know there were instant cameras before Polaroid... But there fucking were. Unbelievable. Why did no one tell me this before?? Anyway, sounds like it's worth a trip to the museum to find out some more and steal a few of the cameras from the collection.

The day closed with Mic Wright, a self-confessed pale writer type, who did a brilliant article for Wired Magazine in January about the Impossible Project. Brilliant because it was at a time when so many people were spewing out the same old drivel and twisting elements of the story into a giant knotted hair ball of confusion. More power to Mic for getting to the bottom of it all.

Muchos thanks to Sam, Anne, and the crew for putting it on.

Polaroid in Time Zero.

Perhaps they might have enjoyed Silver Steve?

What a mistake to make.

This is the photo I entered into the Blur Polaroid competition. In hindsight it was an overwhelmingly bad decision as clearly the judges were hallucinated by the beauty of Time Zero film. It's a trap we've probably all fallen into at some point... me certainly.

But the instructions were clear. Sumbit your best photo. In your opinion. So, I did.

I picked a photo that was personally important and I felt had enough drama and beauty in it to have a chance. So, I mustn't feel bad about the subjective decisions of other individuals. Judging a photo competition must be one of the hardest jobs imaginable.

I had the joy of judging an art competition last summer and although there was a clear stand-out winner in my mind filtering the rest into some kind of order was a type of torture.

But i'll always wonder if I had uploaded something garish in Time Zero whether it would have made the cut. I'll throw up some contenders in a bit.

Do I have to paint you a picture?

For anyone who can get to Cardiff, Wales this weekend there's the makings of a really interesting Polaroid conference going on. It's 11 - 5 in Morgan Arcade and includes some great Polaroid users.

I'm booked. Hopefully I won't be the only one.

And a close second.

Polaroid by Carmendevos.

Your favourite Polaroid?

Blur magazine are the media sponsor of the Impossible Project. Recently they ran a Polaroid contest. Sadly, the witless judges didn't pick one of mine as a finalist but you can see their selection of 30 here

I wouldn't want to bias your voting, but I will anyway. Here's my favourite.

What I found incredibly disappointing is the massive bias in favour of integral shots, with mainly SX70 film predominating. Alright it's a beautiful film, and some of the photos are okay too, but there was no representation from some of Polaroid's historic classic films. Where was the 665? Where was the 669? Where was 59? Not even any of the recent beautiful chocos.

I presume this is a nod at Impossible's future being based around integral materials, but that doesn't mean this type of film fascism is particularly pleasant. It also doesn't give a very balanced view of Polaroid's broad brush. More it confines and reinforces the public's knowledge that Polaroids all look one shape and have a big white border.

Anyway. It doesn't matter. It's only a competition. But do run along and vote, won't you.

Polaroid by Zora Strangefields.

Missing the old ways.

So.

I've moved and never again can the cats sit in front of this window. Shame. But I hope they'll be plenty of other windows to nest in front of. The new house is not as picturesque as the last one so I doubt it will show up much here. Maybe when i leave it.

The future's black and white. So here's to the future.

Flat field, one tree.

Waiting for the nice people of FedEx to show themselves. I've only been waiting for 6 hours. Could be worse.