Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Going Retro: Polaroids


Today I'm guest posting on Sarah's blog, Shorelines and Sunshine! Check it out! Shorelines and Sunshine has a monthly feature called "Shoreline of the Month" and today I'm talking about the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Go and visit Sarah's blog!

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The children's hospital I volunteer at is moving to a new location in June, which means that there's a lot of cleaning out to do. I work in the teen "playroom", so we've been slowly cleaning and discovering things in our closets we never thought existed.

One treasure we found: a legit Polaroid camera that looked like it was from the 80s.


Imagine four college girls trying to get this contraption to work. By the time we were all in elementary school, digital cameras had already been invented and film was becoming a thing of the past.  Luckily, a mom of a patient came to our rescue. Having majored in photography, she knew the ins and outs of the camera and taught us all how to load the film. It's so weird: I never remember having to load film into a camera, even when I was a little kid. It's been digital cameras all the way.

Long story short, we had a fun day volunteering and took pictures of everyone we could find. Here's a picture of myself on a retro Polaroid. Sorry for the blurriness!



And now I really want a Polaroid camera. I went to Urban Outfitters' website because I knew they always had retro-looking cameras whenever I visited them.


Alas, no Polaroid cameras. They do carry this cute little hipster camera, which actually uses film. When was the last time you saw a camera that used film?

I don't even think Polaroid is making those cameras anymore. This is the closest camera I could find to the original one (it's the Polaroid Instant Camera 300), but it just doesn't seem the same.

Also,I just learned that Polaroid made these cameras back when I was a kid. I always thought they were just toys. Does anyone remember these? They took tiny instant pictures that were stickers. I remember sticking those things all over my the house, much to my mom's dismay.


Guess I'll just stick to my digital camera for now. Does anyone else miss the days of old-fashioned cameras and film?

5 comments:

  1. I remember those sticker cameras - I was obsessed with mine! I definitely want to look into getting a vintage camera :)

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  2. OMG... perks of growing up in the third world, is technology takes it's time, so I used a polaroid until 2002 when I moved to the states... haha this was an interesting story though.

    xx
    meinmode.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh yes, I want a polaroid too! there are some on the market (there's a new line of those released by another company), too bad the paper costs really a lot..

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  4. oh my gosh i remember my izone! i had a purple one. whenever i go to my parents house i always find those stickers in the weirdest places from when i was a kid.

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  5. I've got a Holga like this light blue/turqoise one and pics taken using it are great!! I developed my first colour film yesterday and Ialready managed to post several Holga photos on my photoblog:
    http://martamichalewska.blogspot.com/

    You should get yourself a Holga if youre interested in photography!photo

    ReplyDelete

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