Around 2009, I bought a Polaroid SX-70 film on Etsy because I wanted to get into instant film photography. I loved the washed out look of the emulsions that you couldn't replicate with 35mm film (unless you really over expose an image which didn't look great 90% of the time). I was so excited to add a new camera to my collection. I wanted to dive in and create as many Polaroids as I could.
Some time in that same year, I remembered leaving the camera in the trunk of my then girlfriend's car and asked her if I could get it back. She told me that it was probably gone when someone broke into her car and took everything in the trunk. I was saddened by the loss of the camera.
A year ago, her brother told me if the SX-70 he found belonged to me and I told him I thought it was stolen but apparently he found it. Lucky for me, he's also a photographer and owns an broken model so he knew exactly what it was. The camera, when not used, looks like some tiny storage box but when you open it up, that's when you realize it's a camera. She didn't know that it was a camera she had all these years and I was finally reunited with my camera! As soon as I got it, I bought film for it so I can start shooting some instant magic. Polaroid no longer produces film but the Impossible Project bought the emulsion recipe from Polaroid and are now the sole provider of Polaroid instant type films.
This is a photo of Jasson Bautista in front of the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles. He had newly acquired a Leica III and I had newly acquired a Contax G2 so we decided to do a little street shooting session with our rangefinders. A little shoot out of you will.
"Jasson and his Leica" / Impossible Film SX-70 / April 2015