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"This
rare camera takes a certain perspective or mentality
to work with it. I had some experience working with
Polaroid 8x10 film, but the 20x24 camera is still quite
a leap forward to another place, partly because it's
difficult to operate the 20x24 as an individual. You
need a team of experts to work with you. The staff at
the studio was superb and non-intrusive," he says.
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Kirkland
had a plan before he arrived at the Polaroid studio.
"What I set out to do was to photograph in such
a way that the subject would not look stiff. My first
idea was to hire a dancer as my model to assure her
ability to move gracefully. I also wanted to work with
fabric that would give me as much motion as possible
when I turned on the fan. I wanted the images to have
a sense of movement. I know there have been many great
artists who have worked with this camera and I wanted
to do my very best. I really respect a great deal of
the work that's been done with this camera," he
says. |
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Kirkland's
plan also included just three people. "I ended
up with a 20x24 portrait of myself, a portrait of my
wife Françoise Kirkland, and photographs of my
dancer-model using the fabrics I brought to the studio.
To my amazement, I discovered that working with the
20x24 is very much like painting. When you work, you
basically strive towards one image. It's not a function
of taking a number of pictures and picking one out as
best. There are very definite judgments being made in
the process and you do everything you can to create
that idea of a painting being presented in front of
the camera," he says. |
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With
the instant capability of the 20x24 camera, the artist
can view the developed large-format image within two
minutes. This new experience taught Kirkland how to
build or construct a "picture" and he says
this is key to working successfully with the camera.
"You can make variations and build your original
art in the process," he discovered. |
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