WESTERN MEMORY
Polaroid prints have a magical power: they capture memory.
Polaroid photos are not the most crisp or detail driven images. They distort color and exposure, and film imperfections are frequent enough that pursuing a perfect image in a polaroid is maddening. This is exactly why I chose to print my photos using polaroids.
In some strange sense it's as if a polaroid acts as a portal to another time. Many photos today are so clear you feel like you could step directly into the scene. However with polaroids it's like you're holding in your hand the same thing that exists in your brain.
Memory is muddled. Memory has pieces in focus and others that fade into blurry edges. Memory is colored by emotion. Red, blue, gray, and violet. The crazy thing is we don't always get to choose how these memories are stored or how they develop upon recollection. The photos in this series went through a similar process.
Initially I snapped these images on a modern camera, a DSLR or from my Iphone. I then converted them into polaroids in a lab to replicate the process of creating a memory, initially crisp but then distorting over time.
This collection is a display of memory. Of time gone by and things as they once were. My hope is that in seeing these memories you will have a few of your own rise to the surface. Memories of a fishing trip with your grandpa, of a time camping in a national park with your children now grown, or a solitary moment watching the sunset as you healed from grief.
That's the magic of these prints: they capture more than the look of a memory, but the feeling of memory.
TO PURCHASE WORK
To make an inquiry about purchasing a piece please send an image of the piece you are interested in via email to Georgina Goodlander.
ggoodlander@idahofallsarts.org
Thank you