From the Archives: Pancake Polaroids

From the Archives Day 8: Two of my favorite things - Pancake and boats on Cape Cod. Many years ago, when The Impossible Project (an incredible company that reinvented instant film for Polaroid cameras) was still young, I had the honor of being one a group of photographers that tested Impossible films. This was their earliest color film, and it was magical. Incredibly temperature sensitive, a bit soft, totally unpredictable. But when it worked, it worked well. Pancake loved Cape Cod. He'd run on the beach in the early mornings when no one was around, splash his little paws through the surf, chase the seagulls and always keep a close eye on me. We talked without talking. I'd get up in the morning and we'd head to the beach because we both wanted to greet the day. I always wonder how many miles we logged together over his 13years on the planet. Very many.

A supplemental 'From the Archives Day 8' just because I stumbled across this ancient contact sheet from the very first portrait of Pancake and I, and couldn't help myself. I was taking my first photography class at San Francisco City College (which had a really wonderful photo dept at the time) and shooting with the Pentax MX 35mm camera, which I bought at the infamous Gasser's photo shop in SF for a couple bucks. It was this amazing, very small, fully manual 35mm - my first 'real' camera - and I loved it. I think this was for a self portrait assignment, before 'selfies' and iPhones even existed. That insanely soft, tiny, sweet, floppy Pancake body just kills me. When he was this age (3 months?) he was so tiny I had to make stairs for him out of books to get on the bed and couch. I mean, that's pretty adorable. Clearly we were both babies here, with so much ahead of us. Miss that little dog baby.