Polaroid Party! The ORIGINAL Instagram

Your guide to instant film & analog memories.

Instant photography is all over our house! It’s a big part of how we capture events in our life. Justin is a photographer so naturally we have all sorts of camera and studio equipment in our home. Over the the past 4 years Justin has really gotten into instant photography. I’m excited to share with you what we capture on film and how to get started with all types of instant cameras!

This is a Polaroid 660 autofocus camera from the early 80’s. Best place to find this? Flea markets, garage sales or eBay! You can find this camera for around $5 (what a steal, right?) which makes the film more expensive than the camera! Any Impossible Project PX film will fit this camera. You can order directly from Impossible Project, or we found this colorful pack at Urban Outfitters. Impossible Project has basically taken over the production of Polaroid film, since Polaroid is no longer making packs of instant film. You can check out an older post of mine to learn more about Impossible!

This is a Minolta Instant PRO from the early 2000’s. Best place to find…yep…flea markets, garage sales, internet, etc, and expect to pay around $30. It’s a little wider than the Polaroid 660, so the Impossible Project PZ film is what you use for this. We like to mix it up and use Silver Shade (B&W) along with color. They even have BLACK FRAME Silver Shade which looks really slick!

This camera is currently in production–Fuji Film Instamax. You can pick one of these up at most camera shops, Amazon, etc. The film is so cute! It’s about half the width of a typical Polaroid picture. I love how it takes cool vertical and horizontal pics:)

This is a Polaroid 450 folding camera for peel-apart film from the early 70’s. This one goes for a little more than most vintage instant cameras. Expect to pay around $80…they’re hard to come by but don’t pay more than $100. The quality of this camera is exceptional–the detail in the photos is unbelievable! Fuji makes this film, and you can pick it up at specialty camera shops or online.

So the trend at our parties? A Polaroid WALL! We have so many Polaroid cameras hanging around our home that we load ’em up with film and have our guests go at it! Simple supplies:

1) Your choice of Polaroid camera and corresponding film from above
2) Thin hemp rope or even fishing wire
3) Clothespins–we’ve even used the mini ones before, so cute!
4) Gaff tape or painter’s tape depending on your surface

String the pictures up and have people add to it as the night goes on. We have a photo scanner so once all the pics are scanned then we hand them out to our friends. Having a tangible photo is so much cooler and memorable than a swarm of digital photos! Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my digital camera, but how often do you really print out your photos? And there’s something to be said about that retro white border:)