tom andrew's blog

Joel Sternfeld - McLean, Virginia. Dec 1978

Sternfeld travelled across America capturing images of the surreal and seemingly impossible. This image is part of his famous series ‘ American Prospects’. Sternfeld limited himself to two images per day during his trip so he had to choose his moment very carefully, which resulted in some fantastic images.

I am always amazed every time I see this image as I see it as technical and artistic perfection. The colour is perfectly the balanced, the subject matter is interesting and the narrative of the image draws everyone in. When I present this image to my class’s I always have to insist that this image is not constructed..It’s real… A fireman is actually buying pumpkins as a house burns down..

I was introduced to this little baby during a rather unexciting mid-morning meeting. I have always had a love for all things Polaroid. I think its just the instant nature of it all!

Well the Polaroid Pogo Printer has it all from the point of view of a modern digital Polaroid. First small enough to fit in a pocket, second rechargeable, third bluetooth enabled, and finally instant dry prints.. with no ink required.

It does sound too good to be true, and well yes it is a bit. Much like Polaroid ‘Film’ in the days of yore (post old’e I believe) the paper contains all the ink, and thus costs.. at present cheapest is about £12 for 70 sheets (just over 20p a print). The printing works by heating the paper and running it through the magic ‘zink’  system.

So grab a phone, take a photo, send via bluetooth and within 30 seconds you have a print. Oh yeah and the prints have a sticky back so can be stickers too… is there anything they haven’t thought of??

Well… they are only 2x3inch prints, so bigger ones would be ace.

Cheapest deal on the printer in the UK is currently over at Amazon.co.uk at about £79 and the pink one is on clearance.. at a cool £69 but strangely doesn’t appeal to moi.

I’m writing a very exciting report on assessment in education.. interesting thing is I have just realised that some GCSE’s are impossible to pass even if you know what your on about!

This is a test 1….. 2….. 3………. (echo….)