Polaroid Is Partnering With This Creative-Driven Art Project to Celebrate the Magic of Analog

Two creatives from R/GA Portland and an art director think they've found a way to revive analog photography with, of course, a bit of help from the analog darling Polaroid. "With the rise of digital photography and especially in the work and the portfolios that we see, it felt like in a way a little bit of the craft of analog photography was going away," Zack McDonald, a creative at R/GA and one of the team members behind One Shot, said. Today McDonald and Daan van Dam (of R/GA Portland), alongside art director Zorica Radovic, are celebrating their side hustle One Shot, as it launches its fourth edition of exclusive prints, this time alongside Polaroid. For each edition of prints, One Shot selects a few photographers to work with. Each photographer is typically allowed to select what camera they would like to shoot on, but the catch is that One Shot takes all the negatives and burns them. This time around things were slightly different in that all three photographers used a Polaroid camera, so there weren't any negatives to burn. "The photographer can’t curate it whatsoever. If they drop the camera and it fires, that’s still one of the shots. It ensures that basically every shot is a total one of one. You can never have another one again," McDonald explained. "That’s also the beauty of this project. Every single shot matters," added van Dam. Once the photographer finishes the shoot, One Shot takes the prints and puts them online in its shop and sells them. The catch? Shoppers have no idea what the shot is going to be when they buy it. [kickout id="1"] For the fourth collection, launching today, the shop is showcasing work from three photographers—Driely Carter, Stephanie Gonot and Robbie Augspurger. Shoppers can select one of the three photographers and then select an image, listed one through 24, for a chance to own a special, one of kind photograph from either an up-and-coming photographer or a well-established one. Each photo is priced at $50. The photographers shot their 24 photos on Polaroid's new OneStep i-Type camera—a new version of the famed camera from the 80's. "This time around it's a little different because we have this super iconic, classic camera that a lot of these photographers, even if they didn’t grow up shooting with it, they at least grew up looking back on it. We gave each of the photographers one of these new cameras and we gave them each a triple pack of the polaroid film and they each shot 24 mystery polaroids for this edition," said McDonald. One Shot originally reached out to Polaroid after working on their last set of photos. For that project, One Shot teamed up with an Amsterdam-based production company, Halal. For one night only, One Shot opened up a gallery with the different photographs for the third cycle for photography lovers to come and check out in person. Again, all the negatives were destroyed. "We worked together with [Polaroid] to curate the photographers. It’s been a very nice and easy collaboration," explained McDonald. "For Polaroid, I think it’s interesting for them to see what their photographers shoot on their latest camera and share their work with the community," added van Dam. [kickout id="2"] [kickout id="3"] [kickout id="4"]