Stories: Abandoned Drive-In (Patreon)

Hey everyone, hope you had a good Easter break. On my side I was supposed to shoot today but I had to cancel because I have covid, yep 2 years later finally got it, anyway dealing with symptoms since last weekend. So this weekend I told myself that I had to shoot something you know, anything, it's been a while. 

So I decided to go to this abandoned drive-in not too far from my house next to the freeway I pass by often. I brought my dog with me, he was very happy to explore new horizons. Also brought my new Polaroid camera, the SLR680:

I'm not even sure I talked about it here, anyway I bought it a few weeks ago at a flee market I go often. There is a seller there with a few cameras, the SLR680 was there, I dunno if it was there for a while and I never saw it or if he just got it, anyway I have to believe it was waiting for me. He was asking $250CAD, but he let it go for 200$ and I didn't even pry his hand, plus it had a few Impossible shots left in it:

This is considered the best of these folding instant slr, the very end of the line released in 1982. This was on my dream list, I always wanted a sx-70 however sx-70 film is very expensive and it's ISO 160 which is a little low for me, so I never pulled the trigger on it. However the SLR680 takes 600 film, which is more affordable (but still very expensive) and ISO 640 is much better for me. That said, the SLR680 is also very expensive, go check the prices on ebay, they can go up to 1000$ and around 650Euro for a refurbished one on Polaroid's official store. so you can say that I had a great fn deal at 200$. Sometimes it's when you are not looking for something that you find it. 

So let's get back to our topic here, the abandoned drive-in. Once I got there, there was this sign saying no trespassing. 

I'm a little chicken, so I made a little detour to pass through the fields, like that changes anything lol, my plan was that if I got caught I would play innocent saying that I did not see the sign since I was walking the dog in the fields (nobody goes there) and stumbled across this amazing sight and decided to take pictures, genius plan haha! Never saw the cameras anyway and nothing happened. 

So here's the Polaroids in question:

I asked on Reddit why some of these have chemical spill, since my rollers are clean. Verdict was that it could be the Polaroid batch from Amazon or the fact that I left this pack in the camera for 3-4 weeks where the shots where subject to hot and cold temperatures, chemicals might have dried out for a few shots. I should have not waited to shoot these but I wanted something interesting to shoot, not just go around like your favorite Youtuber and take dull pictures just for the fun of it ;) Anyway, you know I like these fun accidents, I like the messy photos and don't regret anything. 

Would love to shoot more Polaroids of daily stuff here and there just to test the camera and have fun, but Polaroids are sooo expensive.

Can you find my dog here: 

I also had one last shot in the Polaroid OneStep+:

Look how this one came out much "cleaner", major difference in the blue sky compared to the SLR680 shots. I guess the glass vintage lens makes a difference compared to the plastic more modern Polaroid, (and the different film stocks) still I like both looks. 

In addition, I used the Ricoh GRIII for a few shots, so here they are:

Hope you liked this little story, until next time, Have a great week!