instant love.

(source)

She came.  She's here.  She works.  And she's lovely!

After that Self-Portraiture for Non-Narcissists class I took a few weeks ago, I've been obsessing about instant photography.  The teacher, Leah Reich, used a Minolta Instant Pro camera, an Instant film camera with a timer which took Spectra film.  I was immediately enamored with the concept of click. wait a minute. photo! and started doing my research.

You may have heard that a few years back, Polaroid stopped making instant film.  10 former Polaroid employees came together and started The Impossible Project, which bought old stock, machines, and plants and continues to offer Polaroid instant film for the 300 million Polaroid instant cameras out there.  That's awesome... however, their shop offers 8-pack shots for somewhere between 19-25 dollars, give or take.  That's a bit too much money for my beginner butt to put into it right away, so I started looking at different instant options (for now).

There's the Fuji Instax series, which has become especially popular in the blogging world, but the cameras looked like toys and I was certain that I would break them.  I'm also not a fan of the way they feel, and the Instax Mini photos were too small for my liking.  I know they had the Instax Wide, but something just wasn't doing it for me...

I eventually stumbled upon the line of Land Cameras that Polaroid put out in the mid-60's that used packfilm, which Fuji still makes -- and is less than $10 a 10-shot pack.  I did some research, clicked around eBay, and last-second sniped a 100 Land Camera last second for $35.

These cameras are NOT pocket cameras.  They expand with big bellows and the one I got is made out of sturdy metal, and there are knobs and levers and thingamabobbers around that you'd never find on a new camera today... I am smitten with it.  It's kind of heavy, but I don't mind -- it came with a leather strap and a cover so I can wear it like a mini-purse.  nbd.

I bought a pack of film from Amazon and took a wonky, but progressively more developed, 10 shots.  I'm waiting on some more film to arrive in the mail and a self-timer attachment purchased on Etsy for a very reasonable price.  Once I've got some shots I'm proud of -- self-portraits or otherwise -- I'll be sure to share them here!

I am obsessing.  Hard.  I love, love, love instant photography.  I want to buy all the packfilm in the world and take pictures of ALL the things!

What are you obsessing over lately?