When we first decided on putting together a Polaroid Week, there were lots of fun stories to pursue and pictures to find, but there was only one slam-dunk no-brainer: a feature on polaroid_billy had to kick the whole thing off. There were the obvious reasons: PB has posted thousands of photos over four years, 99.8% of them Polaroids; and he founded and still administers the group log polaroids_only. But the less obvious ones were even more compelling. In mid-2003, when Fotolog membership was still in the thousands, some people started to get really well-known, and polaroid_billy became a kind of Fotolog legend. Partly for his really cool, unique photographic style, of course, but also for the witty, offbeat, sometimes crazy-sounding comments he’d leave in guestbooks all over the place. He was one of many folks who really looked at everybody’s stuff, and had good, and often seriously perceptive things to say about it. For one stretch of several months, whenever PB was surfing Fotolog, he’d greet nearly every single new member that appeared with their very first guestbook comment, “Welcome to Fotolog!” He was a self-appointed ambassador of Fotolog. In short, polaroid_billy was The Man.
So recently I visited via e-mail with the man behind polaroid_billy, and it turns out he is a mensch, too. Mike Miller is his name: early fifties, native Californian, lapsed hippie, loving husband and father, Polaroid fa-na-tic. Mike took me aback with just how into the conversation and forthcoming he was. In fact, I’ve never interviewed anyone else who had so much fun doing it. Maybe his gregariousness has something to do with his job: he’s an Administrative Services Officer with the County of Sacramento Planning and Community Development Department. And he loves it. His entire office goes out for lunch every Friday. But I think it probably has more to do with family—his wife, Cindy Jo, and daughter, Rachael, who turns 19 next week. When you browse through his Polaroid album of eerie domestic tableaux, multiple exposures, and holiday snaps, it quickly becomes very clear how much family means to Mike. And to polaroid_billy. We’re happy they’re both such a big part of the Fotolog family. —along
AL: So OK Mike, let me ask you about how it all began. Very early in your Fotolog, you posted the first Polaroid you ever took:
02/01/03
the first polariod i ever took. christmas day 1968
and then you posted the story as a comment, under one of your several alter egos, billy_ruben:
billy_ruben @ 2003-02-02 12:09 said:
all i wanted that year was a polariod “swinger” camera. and i got it. i ripped the film out, shoved it in and shot the first thing i saw…my dad at mom’s electric chord organ. of course, i didn’t waste time reading the instructions and peeled the picture before it was developed. my polaroid career was downhill from there.
That’s totally classic. I think we all beg to differ about the subsequent trajectory of your Polaroid career. Do you still have that Swinger? Have you kept all the photos you made with it?
MM: No, I don’t have that Swinger anymore. Chucked it out with a lot of other stuff in my late teen years.
More Polaroid_billy
I went through a phase when I planned to be a hippie so I got rid of everything that I didn’t think fit into my fantasy lifestyle. I never did really get to be a hippie—I was born a few years too late. However, I did grow my hair and beard and get addicted to various drugs. I do have the majority of the photos I took with it. I have obsessively saved every photo I have ever taken.
AL: That Swinger seems to have been the genesis of your nearly four-decade devotion to Polaroids. Why do you think you’ve stuck with the format all these years? What do you love about them?
MM: I have this weird sorta mystical notion about Polaroids. You see, when you take a Polaroid picture the light that makes the picture actually hits the chemicals that touch the photo paper so the finished Polaroid photo has direct contact with the energy emanating from the objects and living things being photographed. There is no secondary light source involved like when you develop a photo from a negative. So when you hold the Polaroid picture in your hand you have direct contact with that energy. When I hold the actual photo in my hand and gaze upon it, I feel as though I’m looking through a window into the past and the images seem to communicate with me on some sort of psychic or metaphysical plane.
Before this mental infirmity developed, the main thing I loved about Polaroids was the instant gratification. Before I got my Swinger, I had an Official Boy Scouts of America Brownie Holiday Camera that I won selling Scout-a-Rama tickets (yeah—I chucked that too, fool that I am). I hated waiting for weeks (yes, weeks—we’re talking 1966, no such thing as 1-hour photo) to get my pictures developed just to find they looked nothing like I imagined they should. When I saw the TV commercial for the Swinger—it was like a dream come true. Just snap, wait 60 seconds, and peel.
AL: How many Polaroid cameras do you have now? Can you run through them for us?
MM: I must have around 30 or 40—they are stashed all through the house, under beds, in closets, on bookshelves; only a few get any sort of regular use. My all-time favorite is my 250 land camera with the shutter disassembled. It was manufactured in the 1960s and I got it in a thrift shop for $1. When I shop for Polaroid cameras, that’s my official limit. I never pay more than $1. I go to flea markets, swap meets, and garage sales a couple of times each summer and usually add a few to my collection. Most folks have like a $5 or $7 tag on their old Polaroid cameras. My line is, “Hey! Do you know how much the film costs for one of these? I’ll give you a dollar for it.” 9 times outta 10 they say o.k.
I’m not real organized so I can just give you a rough idea of what I have because I don’t feel like trying to find them all right now.
Polaroid Land Cameras (aka Pack Film Cameras)—maybe 15 or 20. I have a couple of 100s, a few 104s, a couple of 250s, 350s, a 440 and a 450; at least a dozen One-Steps that use the 600 film—one of them has auto-focus (ooohhh). I have 2 Spectras and 1 Joycam. A couple of years ago my dad gave me his SX-70—it was the family camera for many years in the 1970s and 80s. And my brother-in-law got me one of the old original roll-film Polaroids from the late 1940s or early 50s—you can’t get film for it anymore. I use a couple of the One-Steps, one of the Spectras, the previously mentioned 250, and a Colorpack II (all-plastic) most of the time.
A couple of years ago I went to a Fotolog Meetup in San Francisco and took the 250 with me. We were at a bar called Zeitgeist and I put it on a tripod and set it on the table. They had some unusual posters and artwork above the bar and I wanted to get a time exposure. Just as I’m getting ready to pull the lens cap, the bouncer comes over to me and says “What the f**k are you doing?” I said I was gonna take a picture. He proceeded to tell me that four years ago the owner of this bar was murdered by some punks and that the guy didn’t like cameras and that out of respect to him no cameras were allowed. As I began to formulate my argument, I noticed that this guy was substantially larger than me and had the distinct odor of alcohol on his breath—I took myself and my camera to the outside tables. Lucky for me they had some wonderful artwork out there too. I got a couple of time exposures but right in the middle of them some other guy from the bar came out and asked what I was doing. I said “Nothing.” He said, “What’s that?” pointing at the 250 sitting on the tripod on the table. I said “It’s my camera.” He said “Well don’t take any pictures in here.” We were outside and he says “in here.” He couldn’t tell it was taking a picture right then. And they call the place Zeitgeist—right.
AL: How many Polaroid prints are in your archive at home? How do you store your Polaroids?
MM: I’m not real sure how many there are but a ballpark figure would be 2,000. I have a couple of hundred in old photo albums but the majority are in several shoe boxes in the closet. They seem to keep real well like that—I rarely take them out. A few years back, Laura Holder (lauratitian) contacted me through a mutual friend. She wanted to know if could sell her a few of my Polaroids. I have never considered selling any of my pictures, so I gave her 3 of her favorite shots. I asked that she post a picture of them after she mounted, framed, hung, whatever you do with pictures, and she did. I feel most honored. Other than those three, the rest are right here at home.
AL: Well you should consider selling your work, if you can bear to part with it. I know there would be real interest.
When did you first get into photography? Did you ever study art or photography?
MM: I’ve been interested in photography for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories as a child are of my dad taking pictures of the family with his Argus camera when I was four years old. I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of an image captured forever of a moment lost forever. I have never studied photography or art in any formal manner. I took a photography class in high school and I didn’t really understand the concepts presented like composition and stuff like that. And being basically a lazy no-account type I couldn’t be bothered with all the technical stuff either. So I just did my own thing which led me to Polaroids.
AL: How do you do some of the crazy things you do? Like the classic Blazing_Billy shots?
MM: The shots with the fire in them are double exposures.
You will need:
1. 90% rubbing alcohol
2. cotton balls
3. hemostats (long)
4. a Bic lighter
5. a Polaroid 250 camera with the shutter disassembled
6. a tripod
7. a light
8. an extension cord with a built in switch (or someone to man the light)
Set the camera in the appropriate position and focus it on the point where you intend to have the fiery subject. Grab a cotton ball with the hemostats, soak in alcohol, and set in a convenient position near the Bic lighter. Remember where everything is and turn off all the lights. Remove the lens cap from the camera. Pick up the hemostats and, holding them away from your body with your back to the camera, light up the cotton. Be careful—be very careful. Turn and face the camera, and move the flame back and forth in the shape and length you hope the fire to appear on the film—did I say you should have a glass of water nearby? Well do… douse the flame. Next get your subject (it’s most fun to do this alone—your subject is you) in position, and using the extension cord with the switch, turn on the lights. Keep very still. After an appropriate amount of time (hell, I don’t know… it’s always a crapshoot, let’s say 30 seconds), turn the lights back off and cap the lens. Now you can turn the light back on and pull the film out… wait 60 seconds and peel.
AL: Whoa. I had no idea it was that involved. Can you divulge some of your other tricks and techniques?
MM: Most of what I do is pretty simple in concept but sometimes difficult in execution. Multiple and time exposures are the bulk of my “technique.” When the light is really low and you leave the lens cap off for like 20 minutes the results are pretty amazing—your living room can become some dark murky netherworld, your backyard can look like a primeval frozen forest. Throw in a few flaming cotton balls and it looks like an explosion is taking place.
I discovered that if you take the 600 film for the One-Step camera and squeeze it a little, it will slide into the 250 land camera good enough to close it. You gotta do this in the dark—or get a dark-bag ($1 at a garage sale in Long Island. “Well you said your son wasn’t going to come back for it… I’ll give you a dollar.”) Then you can use the camera the same as you would if it had the 669 film in it except… after you make your exposure, you hafta (in the dark) remove the film from the 250 and put it back in the One-Step which will immediately click-whizz-brrrr spit it out. Watch what develops.
The wonderful folks at Polaroid put these little nipples on the 600 film packs so that you wouldn’t accidently stick it in your SX-70 (like I’d do that). These can be snipped off with a pair of toenail clippers. Wanna put SX-70 film in your One-Step? The missing nipples on the SX-70 film make this hard but not impossible. The answer? Brute force. Warning: push hard but firmly and keep steady. If your hand slips you can get cut—the door of the One-Step has some sharp edges.
AL: “Billy’s Primitive Photography,” as you titled your Fotolog way back when, covers a lot of territory, but there are several strands running through your work that tend to ignore the boring conventions of photography: there’s a lot of blurriness and emptiness, crazy colors and mysterious apparitions, wild picture flaws and “errors.” Some of that I figure comes naturally from the inherent character of Polaroids, but in looking through your Fotolog and comments I also get the sense that you take a lot of pleasure in flouting the norms—in one caption you’re an “outlaw,” a self-styled rebel. Do you feel that’s part of what your pictures are about? How did your very original style develop?
MM: Yes. Conventions are for the conventional. I’m an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I am less than and better at the same time. Often I cannot differentiate the true from the false. I am very self-conscious and self-centered, and by acting out with my Polaroid cameras I get a sort of catharsis. I’m an outlaw and a rebel but I want so much to be loved. Well—sometimes.
I remember when I got back my very first roll of film from my Brownie and I counted the pictures, there were only 18. The roll said 24, and I know I took at least that many, so I looked at the negatives and sure enough there were the other 6 pictures. I asked mom, “Why didn’t they give me all my pictures?”, and she said that they don’t develop the ones that are not in focus or are too dark or too light. I remember being livid. Who the hell where “they” that “they” could decide which of my pictures were good enough? I think that began my odyssey and obsession with darkness and light and focus. I find that some of my favorite images couldn’t pass muster at the “crisp and clear academy,” and that’s fine with me. Being an egomaniac, it’s all about me and what I like anyway, right?
When I first noticed “flaws” in my Polaroids, they were caused by not evenly applying the old-fashioned coating to the black-and-white pictures from the Swinger (for those who remember: originally it was necessary to apply this foul-smelling goop to the b&w’s or they would oxidize—something I later came to desire in my images). There would be oxidized streaks after everything dried and I was tempted to throw those ones away. I didn’t. Later, I found out that if I didn’t clean the rollers on my Land Camera, things would happen, like lots of little “stars” across the image or the emulsion wouldn’t be spread across the paper all the way. Again, I was displeased but later I tried to duplicate these “flaws” to achieve an effect (I don’t know what exactly). I have gone as far as to put stuff on the roller to force the emulsion to apply unevenly… with interesting results.
I found that using expired film would give images different colorations, and on the SX-70 and 600 films the emulsion partially dried up and didn’t spread under the clear plastic all the way. As with a lot of my other “techniques,” each of these was a bit of a chance meeting and it often would take a whole pack of film to get one Polaroid I liked. In my closet right now are dozens of packs of 600 and 669 film, expired anywhere from 2 to 5 years, just waiting for inspiration to be put to use. One word of warning—sometimes 600 film battery packs go dead a few years after expiration… then you are s. o. l. Like everything else I do, it’s a crap shoot.
One of my biggest influences for my multiple exposure obsession is Harold “Doc” Edgerton. In grade school, I saw a movie about him and his stroboscope photography (you saw it too?) that left a lasting impression on me. When I began experimenting with using flashes for multiple exposures, I used a technique I remembered from his film where the photography was done in a darkened room with an open lens using the strobe to freeze motion on film. Of course, I did mine on a vastly more primitive scale with almost stone-age equipment compared to Doc’s.
When I took photography in high school, I had a difficult time understanding what the teacher expected from me regarding my photos. It seemed like a lot of it had nothing to do with photography and a lot to do with scissors and paper and glue and being neat and clean and right. My idea was that if the picture made you feel something—good or bad—then it was successful. I didn’t do real well there, except for the time when—after getting a little high before class—I knocked a big fly out of the air and stuck it in the enlarger and put a piece of photo paper under it and developed it. I did a minimal mounting job and turned it in. I got an ‘A’. When I tried really hard, I got ‘B’s and ‘C’s; when I screwed around, I got an ‘A’. Thus I turned outlaw and rebel in my photography.
AL: For all their wildness, your photos are still anchored in the realities of family and home. You’ve got every family member in there multiple times, dozens of eerie kitchen and living room shots, and loving shots of all the dogs your family has had over the years: heidi, corky, sherman, muffie, angel, jessie, buster… More than any other I’ve seen, your Fotolog is really a very personal family album, often joyful, and at other times painful to look at. There are tributes to, and photos by, your brother Bill, who died from cancer several years ago; captions about the ups and downs of marriage; and Polaroids of your first daughter, Katherine Michelle, who died at birth 21 years ago. Taken as a whole, it’s breathtaking how moving it is. And beautiful. You probably didn’t set out to build such a family album, but do you consider it something like that now?
MM: Yes I do. You’re right—I didn’t intend to do anything like this when I started. The first Fotolog I created was billy_ruben, as a sort of alter ego. The name Bill has been a common thread throughout my life—my brother, my best friend in childhood, many of my favorite literary characters (Billy Pilgrim for one), and at the time I had just finished reading Silence of the Lambs, and I loved the idea of a fictional character (Hannibal) creating a fictional character (Billy Rubin)—sort of a doubly fictional character. Billy_ruben, before he got obsessed with putting his hand into every picture he took, posted some old, freaky Polaroids.
One of the early Fotologgers, Moodywoodpecker, suggested that Billy post more of those old shots and polaroid_billy was born. Billy ran out of weird stuff after a while, and so I let him use any Polaroids he could find—which happened to include lots of family photos. So now Billy and I have become one and the same—except Billy has more hair than me.
AL: Ha, yes, I can see that.
You’re not ever going to stop making these pictures, are you? From the amazing evidence you’ve posted—four years, and 40 years of photos—you and Polaroid are completely inseparable.
MM: Polaroid photography has been an integral part of my life since that first Swinger back in 1968. I love the rich look and warm feel of the images. I like the idea that each one is unique and even though you can copy and scan them—there’s only one original. I am a natural born collector and Polaroids give me the chance to feed this obsession. Someday when I’m real old and have nothing else to spend my time on, I’ll get out all my Polaroids and mount them and arrange them and… oh probably they’ll just get thrown away when I die. But that’s o.k.
Polaroid_billy, through the magic of Fotolog, has given me the opportunity to share things I love with the world. The images that most define Billy were created in a vacuum with very little influence from the proper world of photography. Billy is just me having fun and ending up with interesting images to remember the moment, or (as sometimes happened) the entire night with. But then, Billy is also about everything I love and hold dear in the world. Family, pets, friends, and home. These are the images that most define me. My obsessive nature has served me well when it comes to photography. I want a picture of everything, including pictures of how I felt at the time I took the picture. I don’t have to worry about how it looks to someone else. I do it all for me, and Billy helps me do it. Billy has helped me learn to share it, too.
Thanks Moodywoodpecker, wherever you are. Thank you Adam, Scott, Spike, and everyone who’s helped make this happen. And thank you polaroid_billy.
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20 Responses to “Polaroid_billy: The Fotolog Interview”
questions » Blog Archive » Polaroid_billy: The Fotolog Interview @ 2007-03-12 05:32:54 PM says:
[…] Original post by along […]
Art Siegel @ 2007-03-12 05:33:02 PM says:
What a great interview of pioneer fotologger PB, aka so many things. I’m fascinated in particular by the detailed instructions on how to make those polaroids that look just like internal human combuston.
And not a single “don’t try this at home”! That’s our Billy!
along @ 2007-03-12 05:39:56 PM says:
haha, that’s right Art! How eager he was to get that critical info out there in the hot little hands of Floggers everywhere!
He’s a proud mentor.
cristina @ 2007-03-12 08:14:02 PM says:
me encanta como son sus polaroid´s
son muy antiguas
y sus fotos rifan
Michael David Murphy @ 2007-03-12 08:35:41 PM says:
Ah, another great Zeitgeist story.
palmea @ 2007-03-12 09:11:35 PM says:
this is such a fabulous interview.
the people at Polaroid should really know about him, i think.
(or at least they should know about all the attention they are getting on fotolog and flickr this week.)
cate @ 2007-03-12 10:05:26 PM says:
i need to read this again. then re-read it again. awesome interview along.
Lisa @ 2007-03-12 11:45:17 PM says:
flaming cotton balls of alchol… i think i’ll try that.
moodywoodpecker @ 2007-03-13 05:43:47 AM says:
hello mike!
i’m always touched by your surreal polaroids. Keep it up.
I killed my account long time ago now (internet time i mean!), but you can get in touch with me via fotolog.com/soph
cheers. laurent
ezek fotoloco @ 2007-03-13 12:42:45 PM says:
you are genious!
keep rocking
rosario @ 2007-03-13 03:03:41 PM says:
hola
romi_cordobesita @ 2007-03-13 05:03:55 PM says:
hello!!!
chulia @ 2007-03-13 06:17:07 PM says:
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joamar20 @ 2007-03-13 07:00:09 PM says:
hello
luzven @ 2007-03-14 09:41:36 AM says:
k ponda no ps aki yo de pasada por su flog ni la konosko pero weno n ps me firmas ok
lucila @ 2007-03-14 10:56:02 AM says:
no se de qe se trata, ni lo se leer ya qe soy argentina, y no tengo mucho manejo de el ingles, muy buenas esas fotos,
epmd @ 2007-03-14 01:11:54 PM says:
good question what happened to moody?
pitufina @ 2007-03-14 04:36:15 PM says:
saludos que esten
super
Ben @ 2007-03-27 07:16:46 PM says:
Is my brother in law not the best. I think he is a pioneer in weird photography. Thanks for the mention in your interview. Ben
ericsin09 @ 2007-03-29 10:58:22 PM says:
xopa man post!!!!!!!!!!!!