Sharon Alagna
Untitled Polaroid Landscapes
Sharon Alagna
My photography has always been about what we see and what we obscure. The parts of ourselves that we show to the world and the parts we try to keep hidden. I use the technical restraints of instant film and cameras to exaggerate those differences. Shadows become darker and highlights blow out and bleed into the surrounding areas. It creates a painterly feel, a softness, and a slight uneasiness. I use polaroids to create landscapes that are little bit foggy and slightly lonely, that exude a strange nostalgia. Like remembering a place you once visited in a dream. I use instant film to create self portraits that are vulnerable, and a little sad, and quietly confrontational. The figure is visually effected by light and shadow and movement. She’s always there in pieces, never fully solid, never fully still, never fully in perfect focus. Instant film interprets light in ways I can only ever partially predict, working with Polaroids is always a collaboration between the photographer and the film, I compose an image in my mind knowing that it’s never going to turn out exactly as I see it. But that’s the of the fun of working with instant film, the unpredictability, the magic, the way that you have to let go of perfection and let the film show you the world that it wants you to see.