Photographer Mikael Kennedy spent ten years documenting his life through Polaroid film, taking the instant camera with him on his travels across the country. The resulting images are the basis of a new show at the Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art gallery in New York City, titled “Shoot the Moon.” We spoke to Kennedy this week to find out more about the show, his fascination with Polaroids and what he’ll do when his stash of Polaroid film runs out.

How did this project come into existence?
In 1999 I got my first Polaroid SX70 Camera. I’m not really sure where I found it, but I became fascinated with Polaroids and started carrying that camera with me everywhere. That was about the time that I took to wandering the country on a regular basis.

In 2003 I was talking to a friend of mine, David Lamb (from the band Brown Bird), while we were living kind of down and out in Seattle and the idea of “Shoot the Moon” came out as a way to explain what we were doing with our time, making a lot of bad decisions but ones that fed the art we were making. We felt that if collected in the right way, [it] would turn out okay.

In 2005 I was climbing over a “No Trespassing” sign onto a crumbling pier with one of my brothers down in North Carolina when we started talking about how a camera was a passport to trespass cause when the cops came we just said, “Sorry, we just wanted to take some pictures.”

In 2006 I started collecting all the Polaroids I shot while I wandered and built a blog called “Passport to Trespass.” I started publishing artist books off that blog as well (Volume 5 just came out a few days ago).

In 2009 I met Peter Hay Halpert through a mutual friend. I brought Peter a stack of my Polaroid books and we just started talking about the idea of doing a show. After I showed up at his house one day with about a thousand Polaroids for him to dig through and rattled off the stories, we chose 500 and decided to do the show of “Shoot the Moon.”

What is the allure of Polaroid cameras and film for you?
It began for the really simple reason that they are beautiful. There is something so simple and magical about this little self-contained photograph; I think that was what caused me to first pick up a camera and start shooting. Over the years, it has turned into an impulse, almost an addiction. When I travel, I just have the Polaroid with me all the time.

How did you decide what subjects to photograph? What sorts of things capture your attention?
I’d say it probably has a lot to do with light. The way light hits something will catch my eye, or sometimes I will try to transfer an idea of a moment I am having into an image. There is also this idea of collecting and cataloguing with a Polaroid; there is something oddly scientific to me about it. Recently, with the end of Polaroid’s film production, I started this project where I travelled all around the US finding kids I photographed before and shooting one portrait of them with this specific type of film (Time Zero) that I knew I would never be able to find again. It was the last time that any of these people — some whom I had been photographing for almost 10 years now — would be photographed in that manner. I also have a list of things that I would like to get a polaroid of, like a tornado, a whale, things like that… like I am collecting specimens of life.

How do you feel about the rise of digital photography, in light of your use of film?
I think in a world of digital photography, Polaroid has become so much more important and powerful. A “one of a kind” photograph doesn’t happen all that often… Even before digital you could make many prints off the negatives, [but] with a Polaroid there is just that image. I often refer to them like little paintings. Also it’s interesting to think that police and insurance companies used to use Polaroids for evidence because they were unmanipulatable; what you shot was considered to be a representation of the truth, which I don’t think can be said for much photography the way it is used today. We constantly are questioning whether the images we see are real or if they have been altered somehow digitally. With a Polaroid that isn’t really a question, it just is.

How did you feel about the news that Polaroid wanted to stop producing its instant cameras and film?
When Polaroid announced the end of their film, I of course went out and bought up as much as I could afford. I think I maxed out my credit card twice doing so, but at the same time I am okay with it going away eventually…at times it feels like an addiction. When I run out of film I am sure it will be an odd moment; I actually can’t imagine what it will feel like to see that last picture come out of the camera, but I am kind of excited for that moment. I am wondering now, if I had one picture left in my camera and I knew it was the last one I would ever take, what I would take it of? But anyway, when I run out I will just find something else to do.

Mikael Kennedy’s “Shoot the Moon” exhibition opens soon at the Peter Hay Halpert gallery in New York. Details and previews at www.phhfineart.com/mikael_kennedy.html.

- TC