Lamination Series

This year I have been scanning and documenting several series of Kodak Minishot prints. The Minishot is somewhat of a toy instant camera, except that instead of using film like a Polaroid, the Minishot is actually a printer. The cartridge of paper is inserted, and with a point-and-shoot digital capture, the paper slides in and out of the slot as it is coated in three passes of dye sublimation: yellow, magenta, and cyan, followed by a clear protective lamination.

The Minishot that I use has no memory, so these are unique prints. After the print is made, the camera is “blank” and there is no record of the image, aside from the print in your hand. As a kind of “poor image” the color, contrast, and tonal range are very limited. I have tested and pushed the camera-printer to perform over the course of geologic investigations in Nova Scotia, Oregon, Chile, and Argentina, noticing how it responds to different lighting and color conditions.

Working with this pedestrian device echoes some of the challenges of planetary imaging: seeing through the limitations of technology, and finding a new way of seeing within such uncontrollable variables. I have come to appreciate how, in the right circumstances, the construction of the Minishot image can produce an almost painterly layering of color and mark.

Each image: unique dye sublimation print, 3 × 3 inches.