I have chosen a new object for this blog post: my Polaroid camera. It is a legit Polaroid camera, and it is legit from the 90s. I recently started using it again. I remember using it when I was very young, probably not more than 6 or 7 years old. We have Polaroid pictures scattered around our house from me and from my parents using it when my brother and I were very young. About one year ago now it popped back into my head. I have always loved the aesthetics of Polaroid film, but I didn’t like that sizing of those itty bitty Fujifilm frames. It seemed too small to capture anything. I researched Polaroid film online and found a company that produces the 3.3 in. by 3.3 in. frame that I desired. It’s called The Impossible Project. They managed to save the last standing building that produced the original Polaroid film long ago, and out of there they produce today’s film with a new recipe. You can purchase it on amazon; the colored bordered film is a little cheaper than the white bordered film, but either way they estimate to be between $23 and $25 a pop.

(And you only get eight photos in each pack, yikes!).

My interest started up again as I said about one year ago, and I have slowly gotten more into photography since then. I wanted to purchase a digital camera, as my phone camera was not satisfying enough, but I didn’t want to spend the five hundred or six hundred dollars to take ridiculously clear, digital pictures. I decided to investigate something I already had. Somewhere, stowed away in my parent’s bedroom was our old Polaroid One Step Flash camera. I asked my mom about it, she confirmed it still existed, and the next day it was in my hands. I didn’t want to risk spending money on expired film, though the vendors said it had been stored in the refrigerator and unopened (since the ‘90s? Wow). I found the above mentioned film company and have been purchasing with them ever since. I have had some really nice results!

The history of the Polaroid company stems back all the way to the 1920s, when the founder Edwin H. Land, left Harvard after his first year to research light polarization. He later collaborated with a former professor of his. In 1948, the first Model 95 Land camera was sold, and this was the prototype for all of Polaroids later models. This specific model, Polaroid 600, was released in 1981.

My mother purchased the camera for her wedding to my father in November of 1991. They left it out on a table with film, a notebook, and a glue stick for guests to make their mark in. My mom said she took it to California for their honeymoon. She took pictures of the Redwood forest and Yosemite National Park. I think there is a photograph somewhere at home of my dad standing in one of those tunnels made through the redwood tree base. The tree is dumbfoundingly huge. The purpose of it then seems to be to remember really important events in my parents’ lives, specifically their wedding and honeymoon. I now have the camera and I have to make sure it’s really something I want to take a picture of, given the high price of the film and only getting eight exposures per pack. I don’t yet have an album like they did, so right now all the pictures I’ve taken here are sitting in a pile in one of my drawers. I like the idea that it was passed down from my mom to me. Since I have such a limited means of taking these pictures, I feel like it gives me more of a chance to decide upon the really important moments in my life that are “worthy” enough for me to take an instant photograph. Also, in every picture there is some little imperfection. There are odd spots that look like the film got messed up from the heat or cold, but it’s not so prominent that it messes up the whole photo. It gives the pictures personality. If someone were to view all the pictures I’ve taken with this camera, it would give insight to my life; the events that happen and the choices I make. It’s unique. These little imperfections in the film it gives life to it and the camera itself after all it’s been through. It’s traveled across the country!