Nowhere Diary and Polaroid: Max Siedentopf
An exclusive interview with photographer Max Siedentopf about his experience with the new Polaroid I-2 camera
I’ve been looking so much forward to bringing you this exclusive interview with photographer Max Siedentopf in collaboration with Polaroid!
Polaroid is launching their brand new Polaroid I-2 today and I have had an exclusive talk with Max Siedentopf about his experience, using the new Polaroid camera including some amazing new features never before seen in a Polaroid camera.
Happy reading!
What's your backstory?
I’m a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and photographer and founder of the art publication “Ordinary” that over the past years has lived and worked in London, Berlin, Amsterdam & Los Angeles. In my work I often like to find little imperfections in everyday surroundings.
How do you achieve the look of your photographs and could you take us through the process?
Pointing the camera in the right direction and just enough luck to press the trigger at the right moment.
Could you tell us the backstory of some of these Polaroid photographs?
I love to celebrate the accidental, the wrong, and the imperfect. I believe that embracing imperfection, the illogical, and failure actually can lead to truly great things. Through things going wrong, we find new solutions, ideas, and completely new aesthetics.
With my Polaroid photos I wanted to inspire viewers to embrace imperfection and to show them how easy it can be to find inspiration and do something fun and unique in their everyday surroundings. Here I took a bunch of ordinary household objects to show how you can find inspiration where ever you are - you don’t need “a perfect moment”. This can be as simple as covering your entire face in clothespins, placing baguettes into shoes for legs or styling up a bunch of lettuces with sunglasses.
Where do you see yourself as a photographer in 10 years from now?
Hopefully at a nice beach.
Where do you see photography versus AI in 10 years from now?
With the incredibly rapid developments of AI image generation one can only suspect that in less than 10 years we won’t need any cameras anymore because generated images and photographs will be indistinguishable and you will be much more flexible with AI. Commercially speaking many brands will abandon actual photography to simply generate their photos to save on budgets and productions. However just as we continue to shoot with analogue cameras even though there’s no logical reason to do so and we could much easier use the camera on our smartphone which is easier, faster and cheaper, I think the same will apply to photography in general in 10 years - even if we can generate images with AI, it will never capture the same magic you can by photographing yourself with a camera.
What advice do you have for aspiring photographers?
Embrace failure and imperfection. There’s a lot of pressure, especially through social media, on young creatives to immediately make “perfect” work, however that takes a whole lot of time. The most important thing is to just go and photograph and experiment as much as possible - even if some things will end in failure, those fails might lead to a lot more interesting results and you will learn something new and slowly find your own unique way and style.
What does imperfection mean to you?
Generally, I think it’s silly in creativity to talk about perfection. Perfection in itself is a final state, it’s basically the end, or rather a dead end. However creating is a never evening evolution that continuously changes and evolves and styles, ideas aesthetics are constantly changing and adapting. In this sense “imperfection” is where you find the truly beautiful and interesting.
Should perfection be an aim for photographers?
Is your approach to photography more considered/thought out or instinctive/based on gut instinct?
It’s a mix of both planning and spontaneity. For some projects I work with very big crews where you need to plan every details months in advance. However I do always like to keep some factors open to have more spontaneous moments during the actual shoot and room to improvise. It’s like creating controlled chaos.
How does your approach to Polaroid photography differ from shooting other analog formats?
There's a certain magic and unpredictability that comes with shooting on Polaroid cameras. It's like a thrilling adventure where you never know exactly how the image will turn out until you see it develop before your eyes. You capture the imperfections, the quirks, and the raw essence of the moment. Polaroids have this instant gratification factor that you can hold the moment you captured immediately In your hand, which other analog formats can’t do.
Did anything surprising or unexpected occur during your time photographing with the Polaroid I-2?
It was great to shooting with the I-2 as it offered a lot more manual setting options than other models. This led to many fun and surprising outcomes that would’ve not been possible with other ones. I personally love to see how the colors develop with the I-2 which surprises me every time.
How do you see the interplay between digital and analog? Should they be separate or can they coexist?
Generally I think both can and should coexist and fulfil completely different roles. I personally like switching between formats, it always depends on the kind of story you want to tell that decides which one to use.
That’s it for this newsletter!
If you have any suggestions for interviews, features, topics, interesting work or photo books that I should check out, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or reach out!
Stay safe and keep shooting.
Kim
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Such clever photos!!