"La iglesia de Pilar"
SX-70, 3 x 3 inches
© H. JOE WALDRUM
"Anemone"
SX-70, 3 x 3 inches
© H. JOE WALDRUM
"Contrafuerte grande"
SX-70, 3 x 3 inches
© H. JOE WALDRUM
"Anemone with Ochre Background"
SX-70, 3 x 3 inches
© H. JOE WALDRUM 
"Hamburger Stand in Cuesta"
SX-70, 3 x 3 inches
© H. JOE WALDRUM
"La sombra elegante"
SX-70, 3 x 3 inches
© H. JOE WALDRUM
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H. Joe Waldrum
The Polaroid SX-70 monoprints began in the
late 1970s. I was finishing my summer in Taos, New Mexico and it was time to return to my studio on 2nd Street between One and A in New York City. I hadn't had time to make drawings for a painting of the church at
Las Trampas that I intended to work on in New York. I needed informational details, and it's a long way from 2nd Street between One and A to Las Trampas.
It was late in the day and I was packing for my
flight that was to leave Alburquerque the next morning. Chatting with my assistant who was remaining in Taos for the winter I got the idea to use a Polaroid camera. I hopped into the car, drove quickly to the
Safeway, and purchased a Polaroid One-Step and four packets of film, thinking I would never need more that those four packets.I had needed to get there before sunset. I arrived just as the sun was arriving
at the horizon line. I had quickly snapped all forty prints and driven home, watching them develop on the front seat of the car.
Two months later in New York Iwas going through the Polaroidsand admiring their special beauty.I was also thinking
what a shameit was that these would probablyfade, or the color would change,or whatever it was that made thephotography of the SX-70 notpermanent. It was about that timethat the Photography Museum onFifth Avenue
announced that the film which Dr. Edwin H. Landhad invented for the SX-70 LandCamera was one of the most permanent of all color photography.I was making art and did not know it. My work was
archival.At a later time Polaroid then offerd to give me all the film I asked what the deal was. She told me that they would stop by ever so often and buy the ones they liked for fifty dollars. I considered their proposal and decided I would buy my own film at the Safeway in Taos.
H. Joe Waldrum
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