polaroids!!

In preparation for one of my photography projects, I experimented around with taking polaroids… resulting in some successes and some failures. I discovered that the Fujifilm Polaroid really does not like taking close ups as shown through those films with white and black splotches. Other than that, some of my photos ended up off frame and cropped weirdly, maybe due to the quality of my polaroid. Overall, I was able to take some relatively nice pictures that worked out well with my photography project and I’m genuinely considering on investing in a good quality polaroid or perhaps a film camera.

So many people (I am guilty of this too) praise the technology of DSLR cameras and their continuous evolution to become ridiculous huge, or comically small and compact whilst adding on more and more buttons for different settings that I lose track of. Thus, when we look at polaroids, we think things like…

“What a thing of the past…”

“That’s so hipster…”

“The settings are easier to use on a digital…”

Yes, these are true to some extent, but a digital camera cannot capture what a polaroid can (without lots and lots of post production). Much like film cameras, polaroids have a much stronger sense of “a captured moment in time”, which I think is the one of the core aspects of photography. I am yet to get my hands on a “proper” polaroid, but already with my Fujifilm Instax polaroid, there’s nothing quite as exciting taking a polaroid. That small, quick click, the buzzing sound of the film getting processed, and then that moment where you stop breathing, anticipating to see how the photo turned out. Polaroids really bring out the core essentials of photography, where you have to make that moment you capture matter within that tiny little white frame of film.