Daily Inspiration: Meet Edie Reinhardt

To start with, Art sort of runs in the family, my mother was a watercolor painter and I grew up going to art shows with her and being exposed to the art world from a young age. I’ve been doing digital art since I was about eleven years old, and often enjoyed playing around with the sort of throwaway disposable cameras you found all over drugstores. I don’t think I really got into it until I found an old Polaroid 600 camera at a Goodwill for about five dollars, though.

I started out snapping photos of just the usual everyday things around me, friends, family, and pets. And then I got this idea from looking at the photos from the likes of Julia Gorton, who would snap photos of the people of the NYC Punk and No Wave scenes in the late 70s, and Derek Ridgers who did (and still does) similar in London – and started bringing my Polaroid out to the club with me. I’ve been involved in Orlando and the greater Central Florida goth scene for some years now and felt like it would be interesting to shed some light on the people I meet when I’m out and around. I was really nervous at first, and didn’t take too many photos aside from people I already knew because it’s not really something you expect when you go out, is it? Not as some sort of art project, anyway. And definitely not an old-fashioned Polaroid. I’m at a point now where I might approach anyone I think is interesting, however.

There’s also a sort of documentary angle to my photos, capturing the people and places that the scene has enjoyed because these times don’t last forever. We’ve already witnessed a big shakeup in the scene with the club Barbarella (which has been a major hub to Orlando’s alt community in general) moving from its original location of 37 years right in Downtown Orlando to a Warehouse tucked away off of John Young Pkwy. The first photos I took of Orlando’s goth scene were taken in Barbarella’s original location. There’s a feeling you get from looking at a physical Polaroid that you don’t get from looking at phone pictures, in my opinion. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. A sort of instant nostalgia. There’s a very ephemeral and ethereal quality to Polaroids, and I think that works well for me as a person.

I’m still doing my candid club portraits, having lended some of my shots to the Central Florida-based goth collective known as Obscura Undead who used one of my photos for the front cover of their inaugural zine – but I’ve also branched out into more controlled circumstances, and more fine art-based photos. Most recently some of my work was featured in a four-page spread in Procession Magazine, and I took part in a gallery exhibition down in Tampa at House of Shadows.

Those were huge steps for me! The shoot for Procession Magazine was amazingly fun, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to do another one sometime. I was heavily inspired by Fred Berger’s photos for Propaganda Magazine, so I gathered up nine of my friends and they got gothed up like they would for the club, and then we all went out to the Sanford Cemetery with a Bluetooth speaker and blasted music while I took pictures. It was such an amazing experience. I had initially contacted Procession to see if I could shoot any photos for them to accompany other peoples’ articles, as it’s always been a sort of dream of mine to work that way, but I’m not complaining about having a four-page spread dedicated to my work! Music is such a huge part of the goth subculture and as such, my life, and that’s part of why I wanted to reach out to Procession Magazine. I would love to work with bands, as Anton Corbijn is another of my idols.

The Androgyny Exhibition at House of Shadows was a really great experience as well – having grabbed my buddy Arthur to model for me. We did several “mini shoots” as part of a larger whole, each revolving around themes subverting the genders of known icons and just generally playing with gender as a larger idea. The photos were all shot on a pretty low budget – having popped into the Walmart around the corner from me for various things to use, like fabric to create a sort of veil for the Virgin Mary-themed photos and fabric to be wrapped around Arthur’s waist for the Saint Sebastian photos. I also used a bouquet of flowers I’d received for my birthday for the Ophelia photos. For settings, we shot a good deal of them in my own bedroom and then went out to Dickson Azalea park for the Saint Sebastian and Ophelia photos. It was dark out and had been raining, but Arthur was a real trooper and we got some amazing shots there. It was sort of funny, he wasn’t wearing much for the Saint Sebastian photos so he borrowed a big black coat from me to cover up in between trips to my car to change film packs or change clothes and at one point a jogger went by. I can only imagine what they must have been thinking to see these two weird people by the park so late at night with one of us being practically naked.

Getting the prints down to the gallery in Tampa was a real experience too. My car’s engine overheated while I was down there and I had to borrow the car of the mechanic shop owner to get my prints to the gallery on time. I feel really lucky that he trusted me enough to do that. It was a big ordeal trying to get between Tampa and Orlando without a car but I somehow managed and the showing went off without a hitch. Nothing sold during the exhibition, but the prints have since found their way to an oddities shop and one has sold since then.

Covid and personal health issues really threw a wrench in things, I was recently in the hospital after a massive benign tumor was found in my abdomen and had to be removed, but I’m feeling better than ever now and just recently went out to Barbarella’s new location and shot a new batch of club candids.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It really hasn’t been smooth. Money is always an issue – I work retail as my day job, and unfortunately, it doesn’t pay very well and film is expensive. Covid was also an issue. The clubs closed for a while there, so one of my preferred forms of photography was completely inaccessible.

I’ve always found a way around it, though. Whether choosing to shoot in intimate settings or out in nature.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a photographer specializing in Polaroids and other forms of instant photography. I think people know my club candids best as those are all over my Instagram. As for what I’m most proud of, probably the shots done for the Androgyny exhibit.

I don’t know many other people taking Polaroid cameras out to the club or doing portraits in the way I do them. People have told me I have a distinctive style, but I guess being so close to my work I find it hard to distinguish my work from others. I think my eye for seeking out interesting people is a big thing that sets me apart. I’m not a typical Nightlife photographer, as I like to capture the spirits of the people I photograph.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
One of the things about working with a “dead” medium is that film is seeing something of a renaissance, but digital is still king. I don’t really see that changing. There’s some photographers shooting for fashion magazines on film again, but that’s pretty rare. You might see a small increase in commercial uses of film, but primarily I think film – and especially instant film – will remain the outsider.