Polaroid should make experimental film more often! And other musings

A few weeks ago, Polaroid put out a new experimental film — Reclaimed Blue. According to their website, Reclaimed Blue is a film that one of their lab scientists, Brian, accidentally created while trying to improve their existing color film formula. At the time of launch, Polaroid put out this hilarious video to introduce the film:

Polaroid’s video introduction to the Reclaimed Blue film, to which I own 0 rights — I am linking it for educational purposes only

Needless to say, I think Brian is a pretty cool guy, and I was immediately taken with this film and the story behind it. Upon its release, I ordered several boxes, and while I was on vacation last week, I shot a pack on my Polaroid 660AF.

My first impression is that it is quite different from their duochrome film, which is a comparison one might be tempted to draw upon first look. I find that it is closer to their black-and-white film in how it handles various tones (which makes sense because part of the film’s chemical makeup is the TBHQ chemical from their black-and-white film). It worked best for me when underexposed, as does their black-and-white film; that method gave me the most detail and the most contrast. This will likely vary from camera to camera and from photographer to photographer, depending on personal preference — I myself prefer the darker, contrast-ier look, and underexposing is how I achieved it. It developed in 10-15 minutes, which is also like their black-and-white film, so you will see the results of your experiment fairly quickly. As their website says, it’s not monochrome, it’s not duochrome, and they didn’t add blue dye to the chemistry — this film just happened, and it isn’t all that definable, and that’s what makes it great.

Here are a couple of images from my trip (to see the rest, follow me at kelseycollierphotography on Instagram, or click the Polaroid III gallery link at the top of this page):

Taken at Dauphin Island, AL

Taken at Dauphin Island, AL

I had a lot of fun playing with this film, and I am super excited to shoot my other boxes and see what I can create, especially as the weather warms up (we all know Polaroids react differently in different circumstances!).

I hope Polaroid continues to make more experimental film, and I hope they consider bringing back some of the older duochromes and maybe adding colors to the range. The first ones I shot were red, orange, yellow (which all came in a package together back in the Impossible Project days), and pink; I think it would be cool to see them bring those colors back. Last fall, they made a limited green duochrome, and I’d be interested to see what other colors we could get in the future (purple, anyone!?).

Another hope for the future is that they bring back some of the cool frame editions for the 600 cameras. I know this is a stretch because they’re trying to upsell their i-Types and have largely transitioned away from creating new frames for the 600s, which I totally get. But, a photographer can dream, can’t they?

As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post, and I will see you all next time! I have a new-old camera on the way that I can’t wait to share with you all and several rolls of film that are about to be dropped off at a new film lab in town, so stay tuned for posts about those over the next couple of weeks!

It feels great to be back!

—Kelsey

Celebrating 3 Years of Kelsey Collier Photography & Rekindling My Relationship with Creativity


First, I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without an update.

Second, I can’t believe it’s been THREE YEARS (and 8 days — missed my own anniversary, yikes) since I launched this website! I am so excited to be back on this site, and I am also excited to be excited to make art again.

The last time I caught up with you all, I was a month into my graduate school journey for my M.Ed.; for a quick update on that, I have changed my degree from an M.Ed. in Elementary Education to an M.Ed. in 6-12 English Language Arts, and I will resume classes in March. As a follow-up, I will no longer be making posts on this website pertaining to my personal life. While I am sure it will creep into some blog posts as an aside, I do not want to make entire posts dedicated to catching everyone up on what is going on outside of my art, as that is not the focus of this site or this blog.

An update I DO want to give is that, in addition to continuing with my Polaroid, film, and digital photography, I will be sharing more of my alternative photography and non-photograph art with you all this year. Over the past two years, I have gotten into doing denim painting as a form of art, and I also want to dip my toes back into doing cyanotypes, drawings, and other types of art that I have not done since college and sincerely miss doing. I have also taken to/rekindled my relationship with a variety of musical instruments — such as the clarinet, guitar, ukulele, and keyboard — over the past year, and I would like to integrate those into this website as another form of artistic expression, as music has always been something that I am passionate about and that drives me to create.

Hand-painted-by-me jeans that I wore to an art show last summer

I am excited about this possibilities this new year brings, and I can’t wait to bring you all with me on this journey. As always, if you have any suggestions for things you would like to see, let me know and I’ll try to make it happen.

Until next time,

— Kelsey


Grieving Who You Thought You Where While Becoming Who You Are Supposed To Be

This year has been pretty wild so far.

The year started off with me thinking I was going in one direction and now has me going in a completely different one.

I started off the year finishing the last of my graduate school applications to schools I wanted to get a Master’s of Fine Art degree from. By March, that dream came to an end — I’d applied to six schools, and all six had rejected me without so much as an interview. The strange thing was that, other than a few days of grief that hit me about a week after the rejection had come in, I felt at peace with the results. Don’t get me wrong, I love my work, but I’ve always known that my work does not fit in the typical academic environment, and I’ve also known that I am not willing to change how I create to suit others and their visions. My work is good enough for me, even if it is not good enough for anyone else. I decided then that I would not be applying to MFA programs again; it’s too much effort to put in to be rejected, not to mention the expense, and my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

For a few weeks, I carried on as usual. Then, one night, it hit me that all I’d ever wanted to do since I was a small child who understood what the words “what do you want to be when you grow up?” meant was teach. I lamented the fact that I hadn’t gotten an education degree while in college — I love my art degree, of course, but I realized that it would be nearly impossible for me to do anything with it given my limited skillset in other forms of art and my lack of “people photography” skills. Then, I got to looking online to see what my options were; up to that point, I’d always thought my only option was to get another bachelor’s, but I was amazed to find that I could, in fact, get an alternative class A master’s in education if that’s what I wanted to do. For about a week, I chewed on this idea. I talked to a couple of people, got my courage up, and announced to my family that “I want to teach, and I’m going back to school to do it.”

At that point, I’d found two online programs — one that looked like it could work, but didn’t, and one at University of West Alabama, which was the first search result I found on Google the very first day I started looking. So, I sent a request for more information to UWA, and spent the next several days on the phone with various people from the school to start the admissions process. I started the process five weeks before the summer 1 term began, and spent the next month cramming for exams and getting fingerprints taken and all the other things you have to do to start an education program. In the end, I wound up in the Alternative Class A Certification program for my Master’s in Elementary Education.

Right now, I’m finishing up the last of my work for the first term, which went by much too quickly. While I am extremely proud of myself for taking this next step in life and trying to fulfill the dream I’d set for myself at the age of five, I can’t say it’s all been easy.

As happy as I am, there is a part of me that is grieving for the person I thought I was and was going to become. I’d spent three and a half years wanting more than anything to get my MFA and become a photography professor, and it has been hard to let that go. I still love photography, and I still believe that getting into and falling in love with it was the best thing I could have done at the age of 18. Now, at 26, things look a little different; I still love and continue to do photography, but I am also ready to take on the thing that was tugging on my heartstrings long before I ever knew I was an artist.

Part of me feels like a quitter and a fraud. I was and am so proud to tell people that I am an artist, and I spent a long time thinking that I would get my MFA and have a lifelong career in art; it is hard to reconcile within myself that this chapter has, for now at least, come to a close. I worked so hard to make myself be seen and heard as an artist, and part of me feels like a failure for stepping off that path. This line of thinking makes little sense, really, as I am not planning on giving up on photography or art; I am merely shifting my focus toward the person I am supposed to be — that I am called to be — instead of the person I was trying to force myself to be because I thought I had no other option. I am hoping to incorporate my love of art into my future classroom, and I am even planning on taking the Praxis to get my certification to teach art once I have finished with my master’s so that I have that option available to me in addition to being able to teach in a general classroom.

I am continuously reminding myself that just because I am starting a new life journey does not mean I cannot continue to love and do photography, even if it isn’t the primary focus of my life anymore. I am also continuously reminding myself that it is okay to feel sad that things didn’t work out the way I thought they should, even though I am on a much better path now.

In short,

It is okay to grieve who you thought you were while becoming who you are supposed to be.

***

I still have a lot of plans for this blog and this website. However, with school and job-hunting, I am not sure when I will be able to post. The best place to catch updates from me is on my Instagram (kelseycollierphotography), where I am starting to post regularly again.

As always, if you have any suggestions for content you would like to see, leave a comment. or use the “contact” link above to send me an email.

Much love,

Kelsey

Twenty-Twenty TWO YEARS of Kelsey Collier Photography & Where I've Been

First: Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all are having a lovely New Year so far!

Second: My website is officially two years old! I had planned on getting a post up on New Year’s Day, since that is the official anniversary of my site launch, but I’ve been so busy with both my day-job and my personal life that I have not had a chance to sit down and write anything until now. It’s crazy to me that two years ago I was sitting in this same spot at my desk, nervous and excited to launch this website, yet here it is, exactly as I’d imagined it to be. I’m excited for a new year of blog posts and photographic exploration, and for another year of getting to share it all with you!

Third: Where have I been?

If you’ve been around a long time, you know that I have been saying for the past 3-and-a-half years that I want to go to graduate school, and that I applied to a few programs and even got into one two years ago. For various reasons which I am now grateful for, that did not work out, but, this past fall, I decided I wanted to try again. So, I have spent the past 8 weeks or so applying to graduate programs with the hope that I’ll get to accomplish my long-time goal going back to school and completing my MFA.

This, along with my full-time job, have taken up a ton of my time, so I have not been as active on this site as I would like to have been, but I am hoping to get back in the swing of things as soon as I have the last couple of applications in. I appreciate you all sticking with me during this time!

As always, if there is a particular topic you wish for me to discuss, leave a comment down below, or feel free to contact me through the “contact” link above. Also feel free to follow me on Instagram, @kelseycollierphotography, as I’m currently slightly more active there.

Thanks, and I’ll talk you all again in a few weeks!

— Kelsey

Is Shooting Film Getting Too Expensive? (Yes)

Shooting film has always been a little pricey, especially if you shoot a lot of it.

Now, though, it is getting downright unaffordable.

Earlier today, as I was placing a $100 order to get 3 rolls of film developed (yes, you read that correctly — $100 for 3 rolls, and only one had special instructions), I got to thinking about the cost of film photography in general and how, if film prices were what they are now when I was in college, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to shoot film the way I did — hell, I can barely afford it now.

For reference, back in 2017, I was paying $5.09 for one 24-exposure roll of Ilford Delta 400 on B&H’s website (yes, I pulled up some old order receipts to check); today, a 24-exposure roll of Ilford Delta 400 goes for $8.12 — $3.03 more. A 36-exposure roll of Ilford Delta 3200 back then cost $8.95 — now it costs $4.00 more at $12.95 per 36-exposure roll. A 36-exposure roll of Kodak T-Max cost $4.95 back in 2017, and, today, that same 36-exposure roll costs $9.19 — a $4.24 difference — nearly double! In only four years!

I understand that inflation is a thing, and I also understand that the pandemic that has been raging on for nearly two years now is also a thing, and that both are driving the prices of everything up (have you seen the prices of used cars lately!? Yikes). However, it does not change the fact that the cost of film, combined with the cost of development and scanning, if you don’t have the ability to do those things yourself (it still isn’t cheap even if you do), is becoming cost-prohibitive — and, though I haven’t asked around too much, I doubt I’m the only person who feels this way.

The good news in all of this is that the prices of used cameras seem to be coming down a little; when I was looking around at used Nikon film cameras a couple of months ago, I was shocked to see that most of them were going for at least double what they were worth. Looking at them today, however, the prices seem to be a little more in-line with what they should be, at least on eBay. The other good news is that, if you are a Polaroid shooter, Polaroid film is no more expensive now than it was pre-pandemic — an 8-exposure box of 600 film costs $19.99,, which is actually less than it cost back in 2016 — I was paying anywhere from $20.99 a box to $24.99 a box at that time, depending on the stock. I sure do feel lucky in that respect.

This is not one of my better blog posts, I know, but I wanted to throw this one out there because it has been on my mind lately and, again, I am certain I am not the only film photographer who is feeling this way.

Let me know your thoughts, and, as always, if you have any suggestions about future blog topics, feel free to share them, as I am (clearly) in a bit of a rut writing-wise!

Thanks for reading!

Art Degrees are Real Degrees.

Growing up, my least favorite thing to hear as a “creative type” was that art wasn’t as important as other subjects and, when I became an art major in college, that art “isn’t a career” and that an art degree is “not a real degree.”

In college, I would often hear other students say they were taking art classes “just for an art credit” and that they actually thought it was "bullshit” that they had to take the course at all because, of course, they thought that art classes weren’t as important as whatever subject they were majoring in, and some went so far as to think that art majors were lazy people looking to get an easy degree.

I hate hearing all of this even more now that I have had a BFA in Studio Art for 3 years.

I will be the first to admit that, before I started majoring in art, I thought the only way to be successful was to get a business degree, or a science degree, or a degree in ANYTHING except the arts; I thought this because everyone in my life was ALWAYS feeding me this lie. I had always been drawn to more creative things, like making music and writing and taking photos, and I think a lot of people saw this and thought they were doing me a favor by saying “those are just hobbies; you need to work hard to get a REAL degree so you can get a REAL job making REAL money.” They thought that, by telling me that degrees in the arts weren’t “real,” it would make me want to choose something more “real,” like business.

Which is what I did, until I learned that I liked photography and art history more than finance and macroeconomics.

There is a common misconception floating around out there that art degrees are all about teaching you how to draw, paint, sculpt, or take pretty pictures without teaching any useable life skills. However, I am here to tell you that this a fallacy.

One of my best friends from college, Sam, double-majored in biology and studio art, and, when I asked him how he felt about arts majors versus other majors, he told me:

“While earning a BFA in studio art and BS in biology, I personally found the art to be significantly more work than the biology, but that says more about me than about the programs. I had friends in each program that struggled to pass the introductory classes from the other program for general education requirements. So I can't take the idea that one degree is harder than the other seriously. Difficulty varies from person to person, for any task. Some might argue that it's utility, not difficulty, that makes one degree more valid than another. And I can see how the utility of biology would be more obvious, but I'd challenge anyone who doubts the importance of artists to imagine going a month without using or looking at anything designed by an artist. It's probably not something you could realistically do, but it would be a bleak experience.”

Earning my BFA taught me how to give and take criticism, how to communicate my ideas and express my views in an effective way, how to collaborate, and how to stand up for myself and my beliefs; it taught me how to view the world around me with kinder eyes and an open heart, how to enjoy the little things around me, how to care for and listen to others, how to have fun, and, most importantly, how to unashamedly be myself in a world that often encourages us to fit one particular idea of what it means to be a person.

All this to say — stop telling people art degrees are not real degrees. Stop telling your artistically-inclined kids not to get degrees in art, theatre, and music because they are “useless” and will make them “poor” the rest of their lives. There are so many cool things out there you can do with degrees in the arts (in fact, here are 38 of them); I am not saying you won’t have to work hard to get these careers, but I am saying that your degree will not be a hindrance unless you make it one.

As Sam pointed out, it is impossible to conceive a world without art — even our early Paleolithic ancestors painted in caves and made jewelry during their free time. So, next time you go to tell someone that “art is not a real degree,” think about the fact that little in this world would exist without the creative mind of an artist.

Just Something to Think About: It's Okay to Be Bored

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for this blog.

Admittedly, I’ve been busy with other things, such as being promoted at my day-job and working on some film photography, but I’ve also been feeling uninspired and downright bored.

And that’s okay.

When I was in college, my photography professor told our class that we all need to be bored sometimes, because that’s when our best ideas come out of us. I have since learned that boredom and frustration are what drive me to be creative. If I were never bored, I would never work on anything.

In today’s world, with all its technology and gadgets and gizmos, we’re always looking for something with which to fill our time, and never give ourselves time to sit, think, and enjoy the space we’re in. We sit and mindlessly scroll through Facebook and Instagram, click through stories on Snapchat, play games on our phones, etc., instead of just letting ourselves be bored for a few minutes.

Sometimes, we need to be bored. Being bored often leads us to finding creative solutions for our boredom and for other problems in our lives. Daydreaming is frowned upon in modern society, but, if not for daydreaming, we wouldn’t have any of the technology we use to keep our boredom at bay, would we?

Just something to think about.

The Holga Lens Experiment

Anyone who knows my work well knows I love toy cameras, in particular my 35mm, purple, glow-in-the-dark Holga. This camera, along with my Polaroid 660, aided in the creation of a majority of my senior work, including my entire BFA show, and, even though I have not used it since then, it still holds a special place in my heart and a special place on my toy camera display shelf. A couple weeks ago, while looking for a new SD card to replace on of mine that had failed, I saw that the Holga HL-N lens was on sale on B&H’s website for $12. I have been eyeing this lens for a while, and figured that now was the time to finally buy it and give it a test.

First, let’s talk briefly about the lens itself:

It’s plastic.

Yep… plastic

Yep… plastic

In fact, the only part of the lens that is not plastic are the two microscopically-thin metal sheets inside the lens that produce the vignette you see on Holga images. This lens is basically a glorified air-hockey puck, and it weighs about as much as one, too. It advertises itself as being a 60mm f/8 lens, as is the Holga standard, but I would argue that the depth-of-field on this camera is more in the f/18-25 range (this varies from lens-to-lens, because, well, it’s plastic, and no two lenses are going to be exactly the same — it comes with the territory). I would argue that this helps the lens more than it hurts it, though, because it is near-impossible to get anything in focus with the lens as is — I can’t imagine how blurry everything would be if the aperture was actually f/8. It also has a focal range of “single person” person (so, up-close) to “mountains” (so, far away), but I find that this “range” means little to nothing, as setting a different focal length does not make the image more/less “in-focus,” and is hardly worth taking the time to talk about. I set mine to “single person” and left it there.

Meaningless ranges are meaningless

Meaningless ranges are meaningless

Another thing about this lens is that, due to the high/slow aperture, you have to keep your ISO speeds pretty high and your shutter speeds pretty low to compensate for the lower amount of light being let in. I did find that, in bright light, I could get away with an ISO of 400 and a shutter speed of 1/80, but, in most cases, I was shooting upwards of ISO 1250 with a shutter speed of 1/60, and in some cases I had to go up to ISO 1600 or down to a shutter speed of 1/50 (which is the lowest shutter speed I can shoot at without needing to bring in a tripod for stabilization).

The last I want to say here is that it is extremely difficult to see what you are doing through the viewfinder. The view through the viewfinder is dark, and, much like with a Holga film camera, you are forced to guess at what you are doing. The element of surprise is not lost with this lens, in spite of the camera being digital instead of film, and I can get on board with this. It makes using it that much more fun, especially for those of us who already have experience with toy cameras.

Now that we’ve talked about the lens, here are some of the images I shot:

Behind the Mask

Behind the Mask

DSC_0012.jpg

Flight

DSC_0018.jpg

Winter Winds

Shut-Out

Shut-Out

Nineteen-Seventy-Nine

Nineteen-Seventy-Nine

Finally, here are my thoughts on the Holga HL-N (HL-C if you are a Canon user) lens:

The experience of shooting with this lens is not too different from the experience of shooting with an actual Holga camera; it performs poorly in low-light situations, you have to use a high ISO speed and keep the shutter speed around 1/60, and you still have to do a bit of post-development finagling to get your images to turn out the way you want them to. This is not a bad thing. It is, in fact, the reason I love toy cameras in the first place — you never know what you’re going to get until you’ve finished.

What surprised me most when I sat down to edit these photos is just how similar to my old film images they look. Sure, it isn’t exactly the same, but the fact that it is even similar is pretty crazy to me.

Must be something about the plastic, y’know?

…

Anyway, all-in-all, I absolutely adore this quirky little lens. For $12, this lens is worth picking up and playing with. In my case, it has earned a place in my regular lens rotation, for when I want to have that much more fun with my work. If you are interested in purchasing this lens, here is the link to the Nikon-compatible version, and here is the link to the Canon-compatible version.

As always, thank you so much for reading, and, if you have any questions or suggestions for future blog posts, don’t hesitate to reach out by commenting or by emailing me via the “contact” link at the top of the page.

Talk to you again soon!

Cell Phone Photography: One Week, 5 Images, a Whole Lot of Thoughts

I am something of a snob when it comes to the tools I use to make a photograph. As in, I have never believed in making artistic photographs with my cell phone camera. Sure, it’s always there, in my pocket or my bag or in my hand, and sure I use it for selfies or to take quick snaps for Facebook or Snapchat, but I do not truly regard these as works of art. For art, I use my Polaroid cameras or my Nikon or any other camera except the one in my phone. Even when I was purchasing my iPhone last April, I scoffed (in my head) at the salespeople trying to get me to buy a phone based on its picture-taking capabilities because, duh, I’m a photographer — I have cameras to take photos with.

This week, however, I decided to experiment with using my run-of-the-mill iPhone 11 to create photographs that fit into my artistic catalogue. Before starting, I set up a couple of parameters: first, I confined my photo-taking to my bedroom; second, I forced myself to use only the basic editing software that comes with the Camera app. I felt that these two limitations would make the experience more challenging, since my bedroom is an area I am extremely familiar with and, therefore, less excited by, and because I have access to the mobile app versions of Lightroom and Photoshop (arguably better mobile editing software) via my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. I also decided after shooting the first photo that I would keep everything black-and-white, because color can be distracting, and I wanted the viewer to focus on compositional elements (shapes, lines, etc) instead of the color of the images. Plus, I just like black-and-white photography, alright?

With all of this said, let’s take a look at this week’s photos:

Day 1: Midnight

Day 1: Midnight

Day 2: Feast

Day 2: Feast

Day 3: Ground-Level

Day 3: Ground-Level

Day 4: Circles

Day 4: Circles

Day 5: Do You Even Read?

Day 5: Do You Even Read?

Here is what I enjoyed about using my phone camera:

  • It was convenient. This is an obvious perk. My phone is usually near wherever I am, it is lightweight, it does not require an SD card or a battery, and there is no pesky lens cap for me to keep up with. It was also convenient being able to do basic editing right in the Camera app instead of having to upload the photographs to Lightroom, export them to Photoshop… you know, that whole process. It was quick, easy, and simple — enough said.

  • I could shoot a variety of angles with ease. One thing about a traditional camera is that they are definitely bulky, which means it can be difficult to shoot certain angles. For example, I would not have been able to get that exact photograph of my hairdryer on the floor with my Nikon or Polaroid cameras, because there would have been no way to get the lenses to go that low to the ground, but with my phone, all it took was sitting on the floor and aligning my phone’s lens into the right position, and I had the shot I wanted. Again, it was convenient, but, more than that, it unlocked a creative option I otherwise would not have had with any of my other cameras.

  • I could get close-up to my subjects… without a close-up lens! With a dSLR, I would have needed a micro lens to get some of these shots (such as the shot of my snack), but with my cell phone, I could get within a few centimeters of my subject — and keep the subject in focus — without hassle. Again, it was convenient, and again, it opened up a creative option I do not currently have with my SLR setups.

Okay, you get it — what I enjoyed more than anything about using my phone to make photographs was the convenience of it.

Here is what I did not enjoy:

  • The lack of depth-of-field options. I know that some phones to come equipped with depth-of-field options and that this statement does not apply to every phone, but my iPhone 11 does not come equipped with such options, and this, I found, to be a hindrance. Depth-of-field, otherwise known to a layperson as having certain things in focus and the rest blurred, is important to me in terms of digital photography, and I missed it here. For example, in the photo of my hairdryer, the background is distracting because it is not blurred out enough that you cannot clearly make out that there is blocky furniture back there. Annoying.

  • Editing. Editing on iOS is, in my opinion, clunky and I straight-up did not enjoy the experience of having to sides-croll endlessly to do a couple of simple edits. Again, annoying.

  • It was convenient. “But, wait!” I hear you say, “You just said you enjoyed the convenience more than anything! Now you’re saying you didn’t enjoy it? Which is it!? Did you, or didn’t you!?”

    Okay, here’s the deal: while I did absolutely love the convenience of being able to pull out my phone and do basically everything I would do with my dSLR but on the phone itself, I feel that this convenience is a little too convenient. Yes, some of the convenience of having a more lightweight system that could fit into places my usual cameras could not also meant I had more avenues for creativity; this is, to me, the bright side. The dark side, however, is that, because of this convenience, I wound up taking a lot of really crappy shots because I wasn’t thinking about what I was shooting, I was just shooting random things because it was easy to.

This is my gripe with using only a cell phone as one’s photo-taking device: it is so easy to snap, snap, snap without thinking about what you are taking snaps of. In fact, to me, there is a difference between taking a photograph and making a photograph; taking a photograph is a less deliberate action than making one. When I am out shooting with my dSLR, I feel that I have to make more conscious decisions about what I am doing, because it takes more time to get to the point of pressing the shutter button. I have to take the time to look through the viewfinder, focus the lens, move into just the right position — it becomes an intimate act rather than a passive one. With my Polaroids and Instax photographs, I spend time working out the composition and deciding if the shot is really worth it, because, let’s be honest, the film for those cameras is expensive. With my cell phone, I found that my process and my way of thinking was completely different; with my dSLR I will take a series of photographs, upload them to Lightroom, and let them sit for a day or two before I sit down to look at and edit them. With my cell phone, it was all too easy for me to snap, delete, snap, delete, edit right then and there, and not think about the photos again. The intimacy is lost, and, ultimately, I wind up not caring as much — or even at all — about the photos I am taking.

Here is my takeaway from this experiment:

Shooting portfolio-grade photographs exclusively with my cell phone is never going to be for me. I admit I was biased going in, but actually taking the time to test my theory proved that I was right about myself — I am a little too snap-happy to be able to make good, thoughtful photographs with my mobile device. I need more traditional camera in order to ground myself in my work. This is, perhaps, because I use my cell phone camera mostly for Snapchat, so I associate the action of using my phone’s camera as a lazy one for the sole purpose of being stupid with my friends on social media. Or, perhaps, it is because I see too many other people on social media who use their cell phone cameras in place of a traditional camera and post trite photographs that look — excuse me for being so blunt — just like everyone else’s. Whatever the case may be, using my cell phone as my main camera is simply not the lifestyle I plan to lead.

Does this mean I won’t ever use my cell phone camera to create work that may make it into my portfolio? No, especially since cell phone cameras get better all the time and since I don’t have my other cameras with me 24/7. What it does mean, however, is that any photographs I do make with my cell phone will have to have been done with intent, because if I do not feel a connection to my work, what in the world is it worth, anyway?

It's been a year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Today marks one year since I began this website, and what a year it has been. From starting this site to lockdown to being featured in an article for my lockdown photos to life changes to everything in-between, it's been a wild ride.

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One of my biggest goals leading into 2020 was to finish a website in time for a January 1st launch; thankfully, I was able to achieve this goal, and I am incredibly proud of how this website turned out. This year my goal is to create more, better content for this site, including uploading new photos to my galleries more often and writing more blog posts. If you have any suggestions about topics I should discuss on this blog, you can drop a comment down below or contact me through email or through Instagram — I am open to any and all suggestions.

Speaking of Instagram —if you have somehow stumbled upon this site and you aren’t following me on Instagram, you are missing out! I post photos to my Instagram page much sooner than I do to my gallery here, and they are presented in the order in which I took them. In addition, I upload my Instax prints exclusively to my Instagram, so, if you have seen those on my blog posts and you like them, that is where they can be more regularly viewed.

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I mentioned in a blog post a while back that I was looking into applying for graduate school this past fall; due to a variety of circumstances, that did not happen. However, I am planning on working on an even better portfolio of work and applying to schools this coming fall instead. If you have any recommendations for photography/fine art MFA programs I should look into, don't hesitate to reach out and let me know! I would LOVE to go out West, but I am open to other suggestions (as long as they are not in the state of Alabama).

Lastly, as a point of interest, this is the first post that has been published on my new M1 MacBook Air (a HUGE thank-you to all my family members who contributed money to go toward this investment! Also — it’s rose gold, and it matches my iPad, which excites me more than it should). I have been using an 8-year-old Toshiba for all of my photo editing and writing, and it is exciting to finally have been able to upgrade to something that suits my needs a bit better (though I am grateful for the time I had with my old laptop — it served me well). I am excited to produce new content using this machine, and I feel that it will increase my productivity and my desire to create.

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Here’s to one year of kelseycollierphotography.com, and here’s to a new year of possibilities.

Thank you all for sticking with me; talk to you soon!

Peace be with you,

Kelsey

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope that, wherever you are, and no matter what your beliefs, you are happy, healthy, and safe during this time.

I’ll be back next week with a year-end post. Until then, I wish you and yours all the best!

Peace be with you,

Kelsey

Self-Isolation: Wrap-Up and Next Steps

What a time this has been.

Most of you who are reading this have probably seen, either through this website or on my Instagram, that I spent my self-isolation period taking one Polaroid for every day that I was home (there are 50 days and 51 photographs total, for any new visitors out there). I am officially back at work now, and can therefore no longer call any new images “Self-Isolation,” because I am no longer technically self-isolating (though I am not going anywhere except for to work — rest assured that I am still taking all possible precautions, because I understand that this crisis is FAR from over). Because this series has ended (unless another lock-down happens in the future, in which case, expect a part II), I wanted to sit down and take the time to a) talk about my experience making this new series of work and b) discuss my plans for the future and a few exciting things that are happening.

If you aren’t aware of my past work, I am a photographer who works primarily with Polaroids, and I use the medium to explore my surroundings and what “home” means to me (feel free to read my bio to get the expanded explanation). I began the body of work entitled Home in the fall of 2017 when I was beginning to work on my senior portfolio for my BFA program, and have been photographing my home since my first college photography class in the spring of 2015. Clearly, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my surroundings and the meaning that I draw from them, so, to me, picking up my Polaroid camera and expanding my Polaroid collection was a natural response to being stuck at home due to the current pandemic.

One thing I found myself doing while creating this series, which can both stand alone and be integrated into my already-existing body of work, something that was important to me when beginning this project, was finding new ways to explore parts of my home (and the front and back yards surrounding it) that I have already explored in photographs before. I experimented with new angles, zoomed in on specific scenes, and even managed to find a few things that have yet to be photographed, either because I haven’t gotten around to them or because they have changed over the past two-and-a-half years. Doing this series has re-invigorated my work in a way I did not believe was possible, and it has encouraged me to continue with a series that, a year ago, I proclaimed I was closing the doors on. I have been genuinely excited to make work every day, and not being able to call the series “Self-Isolation” anymore does not mean that I won’t continue to make photographs as often as I can.

I said in my last blog entry that I had not yet decided how I want to continue with my work; one idea that I have had that I want to try out is making a “Photo of the Week” post each Saturday to highlight my favorite image from that week, and continuing to put photos up on my Instagram and in my Polaroid gallery on this website. This seems the most reasonable way for me to continue to share my work without overwhelming the blog with new entries, since I want to get back to writing about photography and don’t want it to get lost in a sea of photographs or to disrupt the flow of any posts I am making (I hope that all makes sense). Another thing I have been doing during this time is playing with some new digital work that involves the use of crystal balls also known as crystal ball refraction photography, some of which you can find in the “film and digital” section of my site, and I am hoping to use this technique to add an interesting twist on my home photography sometime in the near future (also, if anyone knows of a reasonably priced macro lens I could add to my wish list, let me know!). Two final ideas I am considering are getting back into film work, since I have found a lab to send film to for development, and really delving into the world of cyanotypes, which I learned to do in a college photography course, but never took much interest in incorporating into my work until recently (I am drawn to these because they are relatively cheap to make and require only sunlight and water for development, making them a great at-home project). All this to say, I have a lot of ideas, and I am excited to explore all of my creative options.

Finally, I want to mention that I got a public feature in a local news article about photographers using creativity to stay connected during the COVID-19 isolation period, which I encourage you to check out here, since there are 4 other talented locals featured that I think you all should check out. This came as a total but welcomed surprise to me this morning, and I am grateful to have my work recognized, especially since I feel that this is the best work I have produced in a long time (thank you so much, Bham Now!).

FINALLY finally, thank YOU ALL so much for loving and supporting my work. I have enjoyed reading your comments and messages, seeing your reposts, and staying connected with you all during this time. I truly believe that creativity brings us all together and helps us to better relate to one another, and nothing has reaffirmed that belief more than seeing the outpouring of love you all have given my work and me over the past several weeks. For the next few days, I will be taking a break in photography to focus on a few life things, but I will be back soon with new photos and new blog posts focusing on a variety of photography-related topics (if there is anything you want me to cover, leave me a comment, send me an email, or message my on my Instagram @kelseycollierphotography — I am always open to suggestions and requests).

Thank you all again for sticking with me; I hope you and yours are well, and may peace be with you.

— Kelsey