Spanish photographer Ana Cabaleiro takes risks with her images, looking past the options and allowances provided by digital photography and working instead with Polaroid SX-70 film. A game of chance, the slightest movement or change in light can change an image—for better or worse—making the arrival of each instant photo a surprise and the medium a difficult one to work with.
Her introduction to the medium came from a woman working at her local photo lab when Ana—who was then using a digital Ricoh camera—asked about their film options. “The old woman came in the back of the shop and brought me an old supercolor 600 Polaroid. [It was] so beautiful. She saw how happy I was that she gave it to me for free. Later I bought a SX-70 and a Polaroid Spectra, which can do double exposures.”
Asked if the unpredictability of shooting in this format changed her style or approach to photography, Ana told us her simple steps to finding her shots, “I observe, I choose moments, I frame with my viewfinder…I used to think that my photos were a matter of luck…I’m not an expert and that feeling increases when I see how the Gentleman Amateur or Anna Verlet Shelton work with SX-70 Polaroids. they’re really amazing.
In the five years since she was handed that first supercolor 600, Ana (who has never heard of Hipstamatic or Instagram, let alone used them) has become a little disenfranchised with the difficulty of the medium—both in practice and accessibility. “Polaroids were my first steps with photography, but I barely use that format now. It began for the simple reason that they are beautiful, simple and magical. It was like a mystery to me—the photo getting out…pure magic. Their texture is unique, they are like little paintings.
“Now I prefer 35mm. I took some nice photos in the past but now I can’t find any Polaroid film that I really like. I bought the new “silver shade” in The Impossible Project Shop (where SX-70 film is available thanks to a team of Polaroid lovers who took over the Polaroid factory when production of the film was discontinued in 2009. They have yet to perfect the traditional color film) but the results were so frustrating. I guess I wasn’t able to use them but, for now I’m done with it.
“I miss so much the 70s look of expired time-zero film. Currently I shoot with an old Praktica BC1 and expired 35mm films, and I feel that is the closest I’ll be to those 70s Polaroid colors that I love.”
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