Photo a Day for a Year

In 2023 we started following Tommy Shannon (@Instant.32.Project) on Instagram. Intrigued by his Polaroid Project of taking an instant photo every day for a year (April 22, 2023 - April 21, 2024) we finally caught up with him for an in depth interview about his project, INSTANT 32 PROJECT.

The Polaroid Project: When did your love for instant photography begin?

Tommy Shannon: In 2014, a few months after graduating college with a degree I didn’t really have any interest in, I bought a 600 One Step Close up at a garage sale in my home town. It was either 25 cents or 50 cents. I bought a pack of film from The Impossible project, and instantly (pun intended) fell in love with it.

What are your top 5 favorite pictures from this project?

03/08/2024 - Choosing this one as my favorite was a difficult choice. All of them were, really. But this is probably the one that I was most excited about when it turned out. I tried a number of different experimental techniques throughout the year, but this one actually combines several techniques that I don’t see many people use. I was inspired by Man Ray’s “Rayographs” which lead me towards John Black’s “Polagrams” and found a way to combine them with the DIY double exposure idea I came up with by layering two Polaroid transparencies on top of each other. Then I placed them on an unexposed sheet of FP-100C, and quickly flashed it with green light. I also made two others this day, and even made two different posts about them, each one using a different one of the transparencies and slightly different approaches, but this is the one that stood out to me as my favorite.

04/16/2024 – I really wish I had done more emulsion lifts during the year. I tried a few but most of them didn’t work. I just think that this is a beautiful picture with rich colors, and I love the texture that the emulsion lift brings to it.

09/11/2023 – Theres a lot that I love about this picture, despite (and perhaps because of) its simplicity. The colors, the framing, the depth of field, and the subject matter. I love Halloween and vintage Halloween décor, and I feel that this photo just gives off a great vibe for the feeling of excitement building up towards Halloween.

09/17/2023 – I took a lot of Polaroids of my wife throughout the year. This one stands out as one of my favorites. I love all the shades of green, and the way my wife’s pink shirt and red hair really pops against it, as well as the framing of her face between the branches of the plant, and the bokeh effect from the SX70.

How much did you spend on film for this project? How many cameras did you use?

I didn’t really keep track of exactly how much I was spending on film, that might have been a good idea. I would estimate that it was in the ballpark of $900 throughout the year. It could have been less if I had taken advantage of buying in bulk from Polaroid directly. But I didn’t always have the funds to make those bulk purchases, so a lot of the times I was just making a quick trip to Walmart. There are no cool local camera stores near me that sell Polaroid film to pick up a pack of 600, I-Type, or Instax Wide film.

I think I used 13 different cameras throughout this project. Including the SLR 680, SX-70, 600 One Step Close Up, Now+, One Step+, Lomo’Instant Wide, Fuji Instax Wide 200, Graflex Crown Graphic (with Lomograflok back), Polaroid Macro 5 SLR, Polaroid 180 Land Camera, the 250 Land Camera, a 100 Land Camera modified to have manual controls, and one post with the Polaroid Go.

What inspired you to start taking a Polaroid picture every day for a year?

I felt like I was getting too busy with other things in my life to spend time with this hobby and art form that I loved. Forcing myself to take at least one photo every day was a way for me to reconnect with it.

How did you choose what to photograph each day?

Since I’m sort of a homebody, a lot of my photos are of objects (or living creatures) around or around my house. I tried to look for things that would make for interesting still life photos, as well as a lot of portraits of my wife, and experimental self-portraits as well. On days when I did actually leave the house, I would usually try to take a picture regarding something related to whatever activity I was up to that day.

What was the most challenging part of this project?

There were a lot of days where taking my daily photo felt like more like a chore than a hobby I was engaging in. I work 10 hour shifts at my day job, and there were plenty of days where I was just beat after work, and sometimes it was hard to find motivation to think of something to take a picture of without repeating myself (which I did end up repeating myself a few times).

Also, another big challenge was if an idea I had just wasn’t coming out right. Sometimes I would reshoot until it did, and other times I just had to settle for whatever it was I had, since I would have to conserve film for the next days of shooting.

Did you notice any changes or patterns in your surroundings throughout the year?

I guess you could say that I had a pattern of photographing outside more at times in the year when the weather was nice haha. I think there were also periods throughout the when inspiration would strike more often than others. Sometimes I would go for a week or so straight taking photos I really liked, and then go another week or two of taking photos that weren’t really anything special before inspiration would really strike again. Also, there were certain times throughout the year where I was more motivated to experiment with different photo capturing methods and manipulating the frames.

Did you learn anything new about yourself during this process?

I think I learned that I can sometimes be more creative than I give myself credit for. I don’t think I necessarily did anything that hasn’t been done before, but I know I did some experimental and creative things that I personally haven’t seen before, one example being the previously mentioned transparency experiments, and those photos perhaps did a little bit to quash my imposter syndrome feelings.

#5 Favorite photo - One of the areas I most often tried some experimental and abstract/surreal photos was in my self-portraits. This one isn’t necessarily the most experimental, it’s a pretty simple long exposure shot on the One Step+, and turning my head while the shutter was open. I did others that were a bit more experimental, but I just really like the way this one came out. The blurred face, the lighting, the composition – it all just works really well together in this one in my opinion.

It looks like some days you took more than one picture, what did you do with all the pictures? Where are they, in a box? Photo album?

Right. Occasionally if I took multiple pictures it was usually a day I was out and about instead of in the house, or doing some activity that I wanted to document. If I couldn’t decide on which photo I liked best, I would include several of them in a single post. There was one day though where I made two separate posts, because I didn’t want either one of them to be hidden behind the post’s first photo in case people didn’t swipe though all the photos while scrolling through their feed. Some of my photos are in photo albums, mostly ones from the beginning of the project and from my honeymoon, a few are hung up on the walls in my house, but the majority of them are in a box.

You got married during this project, congrats! On this day you only shared one picture, did you take more?

Thank you! The photo I shared that day was one I had in mind for quite a while before the wedding. That was the only Polaroid photo that I personally took that day. I wanted to be more in the moment that day and not worry about carrying my camera around. We did have a couple of other Polaroid cameras at the reception though for guests to take photos, most of them were taken by my sister, just of the guests enjoying their time and people dancing and playing games, so we do have a decent stack of Polaroids from that day!

What were your thoughts on the days when you felt uninspired but still had to take the picture for this project?

My thoughts on those days could be anywhere from stressing myself out over trying to come up with something interesting, and just settling for a snapshot of a scene from my life, without stressing over trying to make it something creative or artistic. Those posts were usually of my wife or pets, and some of them still came out quite well despite not trying too hard to make them stand out. They’re still special because they’re a picture of something I love.

Looking back, how do you feel about your project as a whole?

Looking back, I’m glad that I did this. Despite all the stress it was still really fun, and I made a lot of photos that I’m proud of that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

What advice would you give someone considering a similar daily photography project?

Be mindful of what your daily routine is like and how throwing a year long commitment on top of that might affect it, or vice versa. And don’t stress about trying to be too creative and artistic every single day. You can’t be expected to be at the top of your game all the time when it comes to something like this. If you can handle it, great! But if somedays the ideas just aren’t coming to you, don’t stress over trying to force creativity. When I first started shooting Polaroid, it was just for taking snapshots of me and my friends. The artistic ideas didn’t start coming until a few years later, but those snapshots are still a totally valid way to use Polaroid and other instant film.