Clay County Fair 2026 Polaroid Photos

I would have posted these sooner, but it's been a bit of a stressful situation. If you have viewed other blog entries, you would know my SX-70 was having issues. I brought multiple packs of full-size Polaroid film to the opening day of the fair. I wasn't aware that the majority of the photos were turning out dark because I only check them once or twice while developing to limit abmient light exposure, and so the compositions looked fine and I went on my merry way. I shot two packs of black and white film and three of black frames. When I got home, I was devastated to find my photos were very dark, and they were only going to be darker as they continued developing over the next week. Here are the ones I decided were acceptable enough to post. I apologize to anybody else who had their portrait taken and won't receive a photo.

I am trying not to feel shame and embarrassment because it was solenoid failure, not my personal choice for the photos to not turn out. I had been raising concerns about the random darkness of my photos the two previous times I have sent it in, it was really obvious in hindsight that the camera was going to fail badly at some point. It's hard to advocate for yourself when you only know something is intuitively wrong but don't understand the technical aspects or language to properly alert the person who can fix the issue. I did speak to the tech, who sent me a replacement camera while mine is being repaired. I snapped some additional photos on Polaroid 660AF and his SX-70r, but I was already mostly at my limit for fair photos, since I was doing this for fun and was not being financially compensated.

So on that note of camera failure, I have since sourced another SX-70 Alpha 1 to send in for repair and upgrade so that I will always have a back-up SX-70. I also need to get a back up 660AF. I am very fortunate that my tech took accountability (unlike the previous company I went though) and that is admirable to me. It has been a long process, started almost a year ago, to get a fully functional Polaroid SX-70 camera, but I really love the format so I keep chipping away. My goal is to be able to do Polaroid photography as my official part-time income, and my husband and I have taken additional steps in the last couple of months to make it happen. If anyone out there is actually reading about my journey, please root for me as I am having faith that my persistence will pay off. I want to find unique ways to be able to participate in society and uplift others, and I really feel in my heart that Polaroid has been even better for doing this than all my years attempting to sell my other forms of original art. It's amazing what the 'value' of an analog image is in the modern digital era and I want to share it with as many people as I can, while also getting paid so that I can work my way up towards larger and more intense art projects. Anyways, that's all for now!