Edie Sunday

My name is Edie and I was born in a small town in Texas called Magnolia, but I've been residing in Austin, TX since I was 19. I'm working on completing my doctorate in psychology but still have no idea what I want to do with my life! I spend most of my spare time with my cameras, cats, and soul mate.

There are two versions to this story: The first is that when I was a child my grandmother gave me her polaroid camera, and I fell in love with its ability to capture and make tangible all of the fleeting moments of my life. I was also blown away by the chemical processes involved and would watch a polaroid develop from start to finish. I even started trying to manipulate them on my own by boiling them and then writing on them when I was 12. Then, after much disappointment with a digital camera I'd bought for myself when I was 14 my dad gifted me his 35mm Canon Rebel, and it was history after that.

Except for the second version--when I went to college and put all of my efforts into getting accepted into a PhD program and immersed myself in the world of science so intensely that photography and art in general gradually came to a halt for me. Upon completing my degree and gaining acceptance into the program of my choice, I felt a profound sense of emptiness that earning a PhD wasn't going to fill. I couldn't put my finger on it-- but upon meeting my boyfriend and him catching a glimpse of my antique camera collection--he was baffled by the fact that I no longer used any of them. He asked me very kindly to try to make some photos again and see how it felt, and it really was history after that.

I always went back and forth between an artist and a doctor, and strangely enough things haven't changed too much. I'm on my way to becoming a psychologist, and art is a bigger part of my life than ever.

Dark and ethereal.

My most used camera is my Mamiya RB67, but I rarely shoot roll film in it. I have a polaroid back and shoot expired Polacolor exclusively, for now (until it's truly all gone). My next most used camera would be my 35mm Canon A1, and I'm in a sort of mad scientist phase experimenting with chemically manipulating 35mm film in order to get closer to creating the visions I see in my mind. I also shoot large format with a Graphlex Crown Graphic, and I sometimes shoot b&w and color sheet film, but of course I've got three different polaroid backs for it that I tend to use more than the sheet film.

Well, I don't really care at all how "nice" my equipment is-- so you could say I really don't care about gear. However, the types of film I shoot really do require specialized, out of production equipment. So I guess in that sense, it's important. But if you took it all away from me, I would be just as fulfilled with a 1970s 35mm.

Because it's real. Because I can see it, touch it, alter it. Because it's imperfect, and it's the only medium I feel I can truly capture my version of the human experience with.

I think it might have something to do with childhood nostalgia and the fact that it was the first form of photography I fell in love with. But to me it's just magic and mystery-- everything about it. The tones I see in expired Polacolor are more beautiful than anything else I've ever seen, and no one painted them--there is no system to it at this point in their expired state-- it's just the chemicals creating the art with you.