IFM Martin Souza

Location: New York City

Camera of choice: SX-70 sonar, SLR 680

Style:I tend to want to isolate details or singular subjects, so my images usually have a pretty clear central focus. Often I find myself at pains to frame a shot to exclude extraneous elements, like finding an angle from which I see only the architectural detail I want to capture, and not any surrounding buildings. This inclination frequently leads me to use magnifying optics, both to reduce the gap between myself and faraway subjects and to enable very close shots.

My subjects themselves are quite varied. I’ll try to shoot most anything that catches my interest if I like how it frames up and think the picture will come out. Sometimes it's a matter of purely visual attraction; sometimes I’m trying to express something conceptual.

The physicality of Polaroid film is extremely important to me, and I fully embrace its unpredictability and imperfection as critical elements of its value as a medium. I love shooting expired or spoiled film, and much of the time images with photochemical effects, artifacts, or defects end up exciting me most. 

Goals with Instant Film: I enjoy sharing knowledge and helping others explore common interests, so my professional Polaroid practice is largely about making the medium accessible and helping people understand and learn to use it. Through my involvement with the Instant Film Society and IFM, I aim to contribute to the organizational work of facilitating connection and activity in the instant film community as a whole.

Goals within the IFM: I’m thrilled to help build IFM into a platform for instant photographers to share their work and discover each other. In the long term, I’d like to see IFM become a self-sustaining publishing business serving a variety of needs in the instant photography field.

How long have you been working with Instant Film? Since 2022 (though when I first took a Polaroid picture I was probably about 4 years old)

All art is always political, and all good and important art is social commentary.