AEROPORT

1995

Exclusive project

A project photographed using analog technology.

The images were taken with polariod film and then scanned on an old Mac scanner to finally be printed on watercolor paper.

A method that gives a very special almost picturesque character.

This project was published in Hasselblad's exclusive magazine "Forum"

Translate from the article

From the car on the way between two photoshoots, Peter saw the empty air traffic control tower at the long-closed Torslanda airport outside Gothenburg. He stopped, walked around the buildings, mounted his Hasselblad 553ELX with Zeiss Sonnar 150 mm on the stand, put on the Polaroid magazine and took some pictures before driving on. 

In the evening when the jobs were delivered to the lab, he sat and looked at his Polaroids. He experienced something in the pictures which he did not really understand when he walked around the old airport. The feeling of abandonment had become clearer in the pictures than in reality, maybe he did not really felt it when he was there, just acted instinctively. The next day he went out to the airport again and now he took more time. 

This was repeated several times over a couple of weeks. So one night in the studio, he put the Polaroids on the flatbed scanner and started scanning them, launched Photoshop and

retouched them with a gentle hand. Then he started trying to print the pictures on different papers in the inkjet printer. He tried and tried. 

In the end, he decided to use a French watercolor paper Arches 185 grams. 

Now the pictures had the expression he was striving for. 

A few days later he would make more copies of the same pictures in a different format. He bought more paper of the same kind, but now the result was completely different. 

Something had happened in the paper process that not even the manufacturer was aware of. The papers looked the same and were certainly working as good for watercolors as they always have been. 

But here in inkjet printing, they became different. 

What was once formulated by the ancient Greeks probably still applies today. It is impossible to descend into the same river twice. 

For Peter, the incident only underlined the sadness he felt when he last returned to the airport and the runway was being torn up.


SÖREN GUNNARSSON

Studio: Sockerbruket 23, 414 51  Göteborg 

Tel: +46707472043 

Mail: fotograf@peterbladskog.se