An Instant Film New Year

January was a pretty slow month for me, and from what I hear from everyone else I’m not alone. I decided I wanted to do something a little more casual than what I would normally do-I bought Polaroid film. I had this Barbie themed Polaroid 600 camera that I had found at a thrift store just sitting in my closet for about a year. I had always meant to pick up a pack of film and test it, but just never got around to it. I ran to Best Buy, picked up a pack of film before meeting up with Ashley who I had planned to take a few portraits of a few days ago. While I was there I asked if she could get a couple clips of me loading the film, and some of the camera itself, because as we all know, social media right now really really wants us to make videos for reels or Tiktok.

I kind of had a feeling that this camera would get some attention, but little did I know that sharing a Barbie Tiktok would actually kind of blow up like it did! A few hundred likes, I kept thinking to myself “what if this video hits 10k views,” then once I hit that, I thought “what if this video hits 100k?” So here we are over 1M views and 200k likes later, and I’m trying to strike gold again!

Polaroid film is kind of expensive and, a little unpredictable in my opinion. I think there’s an aesthetic there, but I had always preferred the look of Fujifilm Instax. Fujifilm is known for their colors, and that doesn’t stop at their digital cameras. I have a Instax 500af that was only released in Japan, but comes with a glass lens, a little bit of flash control, and just a great overall look to it. I do like my Fujifilm Wide 300 as well, but it produces photos just a little softer because of the plastic lens it uses. I would recommend either of these cameras for the Wide film any day over the Polaroid.

If you’re more of an Instax Mini person there’s some great options there as well. I would go with the Mini 90 Neo Classic, but if you have the money for it the new Mini Evo looks amazing! As for myself, I borrowed this Hello Kitty Themed Instax and liked the feel of it so much that I bought one of my own. It’s not as small and practical as any other Mini camera you’d buy, but the feel of it makes up for it. If you’re a Hello Kitty fan, then this is the camera for you.

Instax Mini has a ton of fun borders you can find. I went with the Hello Kitty themed, (of course) the newer contact sheet borders, and this waaaay overpriced Supreme branded. There’s no difference as far as the quality of the photo goes, even when it comes to the Instax Wide, you get a pretty similar photo outside of the borders. Wide you only get three options at this time, standard white border, black border, and monochrome. You can’t really go wrong with any of these, but make sure you shoot somewhere well lit because they do not play too well with darker environments.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have another viral photography video, but I am glad I went out and made something that people like. I think if nothing else, I’m glad that I have an excuse to keep trying out different things when it comes to photography. If anyone has something any of you would like to see me take photos with please send me recommendations. Also, I listed links to everything I have used and suggested down below if you would like to start getting into instant photography.

P.S. I also wanted to share my Polaroid Spectra Onyx. It’s not something I would tell anyone who wants to avidly shoot with because they don’t make Spectra film anymore, but it is a really nice decorative piece.