polaroid | Chase Jarvis

Feb 08

What I’ve Learned in The Trenches– MY 5 Step Guide to Street + Snapshot Photography

A couple years ago, you may recall, during a month-long artist-in-residency at the Ace Hotel in NYC I took the opportunity to celebrate the snapshot -- quintessential street photography -- and I called the exhibit Dasein: Invitation to Hang. ['Dasein' is a German word used by philosophers to refer to raw human experience or the fundamental mode of "being there." I found that when applied to photography, the snapshot was the ultimate photographic expression of... read more ›

Aug 19

100 Ideas that Changed Photography

Every so often, I am reminded of the tectonic shifts in photography that seem to skip under the radar in our exploding world of photography and photographers. No harm, no foul -- but it snaps my head back into place when pointing these out from time to time. Mary Warner Marian's book 100 Ideas that Changed Photography does a damn nice job highlighting some of these shifts. It's her personal take on the most influential ideas... read more ›

Apr 26

Photo Geeks + Space Nerds Unite — Beautiful, Never Before Seen 360 Degree Images of Mercury

Photo geeks and space nerds unite. Saw this and had to share it. This is the first time mankind has ever seen the planet Mercury in its entirety. Scientists used thousands of images collected for over a year by the MESSENGER probe to completely map the surface of the planet, taken at a resolution of 1km per pixel. The yellow-orange sections are highly volcanic lava plains, and the dark blue areas are assumed to be... read more ›

Apr 25

Stop Creating False Barriers Between You & The Photos You Want to Take [aka Going to the End of the Earth to Get the Shot]

Are you pursuing your personal passions to get the pictures you want, or are you letting...ahem..."too many obstacles" stop you? Here's a little inspiration. Using a weather balloon, a Gopro 2, a Multiplex Funjet and some other lo-fi equipment, David Windestål decided to get some first person footage of a trip to space. What he ends up with is an awesome video of the camera's trip into orbit, and a ton of inspiration for the... read more ›

Apr 12

Repurposed Vintage Cameras — Keep the Lights On + Other Unconventional Uses

An invention doesn't truly achieve obsolescence until it gets turned into a night light. Or a meat grinder. Such it is for these retro film cameras, repurposed for some good fun, inspiration, and to invoke a sense of nostalgia for the days of dark rooms. Somewhere a hipster just gasped "the horror" and a grandfather went looking for his Dualflex III. Before you freak (or hate on the hacking... read more ›

Oct 03

Impossible Pictures of Pictures

Hey photo friends, Erik here with my quick 2 cents on a new product that has sparked some debate here in the CJ Studio. The Impossible Project has a Kickstarter campaign for their new "Impossible Instant Lab", which will "transform your digital iPhone images into real instant photographs that you can touch, caress and share with friends." Take a look at the Kickstarter video for all the details: I should love this thing. I... read more ›

Feb 14

The 50 Greatest Cameras of All Time?

Hey photo friends, Erik here. I recently stumbled upon Photography Monthly’s article on “The 50 Greatest Cameras of All Time”. I was a little surprised that my beloved Olympus E-P3 didn’t make their list, but I put together this little collection of some of my other favorites with some bits of information about them for your perusal. And whoa are there some doozies in there. The list is fascinating, lots of history and indications of... read more ›

Jan 10

The Un-Moment: Why Gritty Beats Glossy & the Deceit of Perfection

When I was a less experienced artist, I thought that less gloss meant less talent. For, after all, it seemed to me to be commonly assumed in our culture that talent resided only in the gloss, the perfection, and the polish. If your art didn't have polish it was only because you we're able to apply it. Now, I tend to feel just the opposite.... read more ›

Dec 23

Blender Blowout!! Why You Don’t Try This At Home [The “Blend” Spot Outtakes]

Hopefully you got a laugh from my video earlier this week where I literally blended (as in put them in a blender) in parody fashion an old Polaroid analog camera and a digital point and shoot, to give birth to the new Polaroid Z340 (avail here)... Well...we had a blast making the video, but we DID experience a full-on blender blowout in the final stage of blending!! (watch the original, see if you... read more ›

Dec 20

“Blend” of Old Analog & New Instant Digital: The Polaroid Z340

Got a wild hair one day last week and had a BLAST making this little video about the new Polaroid Z340 -- a blend of old analog and new digital technologies. Hope you dig it enough to have a laugh, watch it again, and forward to your friends. Polaroid has never been about specs or crazy high end performance, they’re about fun, instant prints, and kitsch. The Z340 delivers on that - perfect... read more ›