If you’re subscribed to my monthly newsletter then you know from the last one that I’ve been enjoying messing around with a Polaroid camera recently. I love instant film for many reasons, but what I love probably the most is the way the film imbues each image with a soft haziness that makes it feel as though it came from a dream; that perhaps leaves you questioning whether you’re looking at a photograph or a memory.

Last weekend I went out into the woods with the sole purpose of finishing off the small handful of frames remaining on a roll of 35mm I-honestly-don’t-remember-what that I’d loaded into my F3 the month prior. But I also had a few slides of black and white left in the Polaroid, so I figured I’d take it along too. And because my little M50 goes pretty much everywhere I do it was in the bag as well.

There was one image, the first in the set below, that I consciously shot on all three mediums. I’m a sucker for woods scenes but it’s difficult to shoot dense woods without the image just coming off looking messy. I knew between the spacing of the trees and the way the setting sun was lighting them that this one would work, probably well, and so I wanted to take advantage. But it wasn’t until a few days after I got home and really began going through the images that I realized I had actually made the same image on both digital and Polaroid three different times that day. I liked all three of the instant film images, and the digitals as it turned out weren't too shabby either. And seeing them together made me appreciate both mediums all that much more for what they each offer.

But man I do still love those ethereal instants.