Today, we’re featuring a fantastic Polaroid series from film photographer Alessio Roberto. Alessio used a lens splitter to create unique double exposures on Polaroid film of his home city of Amsterdam. Here is more from Alessio on how this series evolved…
All the Polaroid pictures I shared are part of my Play with My City series. I started this project for fun in February 2021, since I was desperately looking for something new to shoot in Amsterdam after one year of lockdowns.
The trigger was the Instagram account @mrsplitter, a guy from the USA that produces split lenses for instant cameras.
My idea was something not new in photography: using double exposure and a split lens to combine two different images on the same Polaroid picture.
After purchasing one of these lenses, in the beginning, I tried to combine different elements of my city, like the iconic houses with the canals, the canals and the windmill etc. Then, I focused on some iconic model architecture, playing with their geometry. I also tried this technique for documentary photography. I decided to document how an area of the city, Amsterdam Noord, is changing, combining old and new buildings in one picture or the countless cranes of the various construction sites in the district. Right now, after I found two expired film packs of the special edition Stranger Things film, I tried to see Amsterdam like in the TV series.
Analog cameras and films used: Impossible I-1 (Find on eBay) | Polaroid I-Type film (Find on Amazon)
Connect with Alessio: Website | Instagram | Polaroid Instagram
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