Banff Photo Series

I am being featured on this blog, which is exciting... http://zephiart.blogspot.com.


I started a new photography series today and I am thrilled. The idea has been brewing ever since I found a Polaroid Spectra camera at the local thrift shop for $5. It was complete serendipity that day because I went there hoping to find a Polaroid camera, knowing full well that it can be difficult to find what you are looking for at a thrift shop on the first try. I had 600 and SX-70 series cameras but not a Spectra camera, and the local grocery store had slashed the price on the 5packs of Spectra they had left so I needed one. Once I found out the camera worked AND it makes double exposures, I was hooked. I plan to work on this series for up to a year. It is about the area I live in, Banff, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Canadian Rockies. The whole series will be double exposures and I want to make images in all seasons. I want each photograph to show how humans and nature co exist in this historical place. So, yes, for those of you who know me, ANOTHER Human?Nature series. I don't plan to make more than one image each day I shoot, and I probably won't ahoot every day. I think about 100 images would be great, then I can edit it down to the best images and exhibit them locally. I shot three images today, which as I said is not what I plan to do after today, just one a day. I am very happy with the first image, which is of a Zebra print futon next to a garbage container and the sky and a small, pine covered, mountain.

This image is a van door with a tree.

This is one of the most awesome muscle cars I have ever seen, in front of an old house (I love that with these two elements and the Polaroid film that it could be in the 1970s, not today) with an image of the sky and clouds over it.

All images by Tiffany Teske

Sunflower Daydream

"A lot of what fascinates me about photography is its ability to act as both the document and fiction, to be both true to life and completely removed from it." Ri Anderson

Well said! I was planning to post this image today and just happened to pick up one of many notebooks kicking around in the studio and found this quote which I wrote down ages ago. I love serendipity!! Here is a double exposure Spectra Polaroid print, one of a kind, that I made at the Calgary Zoo in late February. It is both reality and fantasy. And it is one of my favorite double exposures I have ever made. It has inspired me to start making prints of my originals and to hold onto the originals for the time being...

Splendid Spectra

Lately, I work mainly with Polaroid film, but usually the two part pack film that is used with a Daylab system, Polaroid back on a Holga or pro film cameras. I don't usually use the instant consumer film you find everywhere (or shall I say used to find everywhere). However, I do have a 600 series camera that uses this kind of film. We used at our wedding back in 2003, for guests to photograph each other and then stick in the guestbook along with whitty comments and well wishes. I dug it out the other day as part of a project I am working on, which I am sure I will post here at some point. Basically I need 2 Polaroids, a before and an after... set out to find the film, had a heck of a time finding it where I live (partially because there are no big box stores here but also because Polaroid quit making these cameras last year and they quit making the film basically this week). I found it today at Venice Gifts in Canmore! AND in the process of going to every store I could think of that might have Polaroid film (all local camera shops have quite carrying it), I found a wicked closeout deal on Spectra film at Safeway, of all places. So while in Canmore today I went to the Victory Thrift Shop, a weekly haunt, and found a Spectra camera for $5!! Yippee!! I love serendipity. Snapped up (pardon the pun) the $5 camera, went to the grocery store that was selling the cheap film, bought one pack to test the "as is" camera, and then went home and had some fun. The camera works! And not only that, but because I have no manual, I think I stumble upon a way to make double exposures that I am not so sure would have been written about in the manual (or could be common knowlegde to everyone...). If I had known it was so great for making double exposures I would have bought one years ago... Here are a couple of the fun images I made. Tomorrow I am going back to buy out the rest of the film... :)