Below are a week’s worth of photos I took with my Polaroid cameras and some thoughts on how each turned out.
The above photos are of my wife and I testing out the Polaroid Land Camera I recently found an estate sale. I wanted to update the Instagram profile pic for This Instant Life and thought it would be fun to take photos which each camera. It’s interesting to see how different we framed our shots. Her shot is with the Land Camera while mine of her is from the Spirit 600.
There is an entrance to a lake within walking distance of our house. In the two years we have lived there, we have yet to notice the above street sign on the tree for “Wagon Trail”. Has it always been there? Have we overlooked it? By the looks of the shape of the sign in person, it looks almost brand new. If that’s the case, why did someone hang it up there? Is it nailed into the tree or just wedged behind that branch? I decided to snap a photo and was amused that it turned out a bit creepy, hence my Instagram caption of “I’m not sure I want to find out what’s down Wagon Trail”.
The other day I was waiting at a stop light, looked to my left and read the local church sign, which usually has some corny saying. But this time I read it twice and was surprised to see, “Maury is not the only place to find your father.”! Where do they come up with these sayings? This one seemed to be an interesting mix of pop culture and Christianity that I couldn’t pass up again without taking a photo.
This is another shot using the Polaroid Land Camera which captures the blue sky much better than my Spirit 600. This tree is in our backyard and I was curious how the sky would turn out behind the tree now that all the leaves are gone. I love the way the blue looks in this shot.
This was taken on Thanksgiving day in Cincinnati while vising my wife’s family. My boys were walking my in-laws blind, diabetic dog and I told them, “Let’s see what a jumping photo looks like on my Polaroid camera”. They were quick to oblige.
This photo is of the house my wife grew up in. The film has a few light marks coming through that gives the photo an interesting texture.
While in Cincinnati, we had to hit up a favorite record store of mine, Plaid Room Records on black Friday. Our GPS decided to take us a very strange way on several neighborhood back roads and out of nowhere this giant sign appeared to make sure we turned right. I quickly glanced in my rear view mirror and noticed the car following us was a very long distance away so I slowed down to almost a complete stop, rolled down the window and snapped this photo. I was surprised it didn’t turn out more blurry.
A little bonus this week included my son finding this Olympus Quicktime EEM camera that dates back to 1967 in a thrift store for just $5. Obviously this isn’t an instant camera, but instead a simple point and shoot that uses 126 film. I decided to take a chance and buy without really being able to test her out on site.
My first step was to find film and it turns out that I had a box of 126 film in a pile of camera supplies that I purchased at an auction in our neighborhood this summer. The box says it expired in 1983! I inserted two double A batteries and the camera came quickly to life. When I put the film inside it immediately wound it properly and I began shooting. I have 20 exposures on the roll and I’m very curious to see how they turn out. There are only three focus settings, one is a just the upper torso of a body, the other is a family of three setting and the last is just a mountain. I can’t wait to see how those photos turn out and will post them here after I finish the roll.
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