Let me just start this post by say­ing that Twit­ter is an amaz­ing tool for net­work­ing with like-minded folks.

One of my new Twit­ter friends, Cam­den Hardy, has some fan­tas­tic pho­tog­ra­phy online. I’m par­tic­u­larly fond of his daily Polaroid project. In mourn­ing of the pass­ing of the instant Polar­iod Hardy has set out to use the film while he can, tak­ing one snap­shot a day. The result­ing pho­tos have the gauzy, nos­tal­gic feel of an aging fam­ily photo and bring to mind the vast archive of sim­i­lar images lin­ing my grandmother’s shelves.

Some of his Polaroids are strik­ingly beau­ti­ful and “artsy” with what seems to be great atten­tion paid to their com­po­si­tion. Oth­ers seem sim­ply to be a ran­dom snap­shot taken on a whim–just shapes and things. These pho­tos, that give you just enough to cap­ture your atten­tion, are the ones that spark my imag­i­na­tion the most. I imme­di­ately begin search­ing for the human­ity in the image, after all, the Polaroid snap­shot has always been a deeply per­sonal and human thing. Why was the pic­ture taken? What did the pho­tog­ra­pher see? What did the pho­tog­ra­pher want to record? What per­sonal mean­ing does it have/could it have? What is hap­pen­ing out­side of the frame?

I begin invent­ing my own sto­ries for the pho­tos. I begin fill­ing in the blanks– using the details of the image to cre­ate a story around the pic­ture. These pho­tos very swiftly move me and become a part of me as only art cre­ated by a tal­ented artist can do.

Cam­den Hardy’s Polar­iod project can be seen at www.thedailypolaroid.com and his blog-where he offers a monthly print club-can be found at blog.camdenhardy.com. I highly rec­om­mend tak­ing a peek!