On Friday night we participated in one of my favorite holiday traditions (if two posts in a row makes a series, then two years in a row can make a tradition, right?) the departmental White Elephant Party. If you've never been to a white elephant party, then drop what you are doing and organize one. Trust me, you won't regret it.
I was not the one to pull this Polaroid One 600 out of the pile. The One 600 was one of the last Polaroids made, and so this camera has a special history. Making it an even cooler gift, however, was the fact that there were four shots left inside. Four precious pieces of Polaroid film.
Now, if I had been the one to open this gift, I certainly would have hoarded the film, waiting for the right moment to shoot it. The friend who did open the gift choose instead to *immediately* point the camera randomly around the room and fire off all four shots within the space of about 15 seconds. Ack!!! Never fear, however: given the magical quality of Polaroid cameras, every shot was amazing and captured the party in a way that my digital (as much as I love it) just can't. Luckily for me, we hadn't come to my turn to choose a gift yet, and both the Polaroid and the pictures came home with me.
Fast forward to the next morning. Nate and I decided to stop by the thrift store on our way home from brunch. While browsing the camera section, Nate came across a Polaroid 600 Land Camera. Not a rare sighting at the thrift store, but this one just happened to be completely full of film. 10 unused Polaroid shots! It felt like fate. I certainly can't afford to buy a package of Polaroid film on Ebay for $35, but I can afford to buy a package within a $5 thrifted camera. Score!
Or not. Sadly, Polaroid 600 film has a battery pack that runs the camera from inside the film package, and these batteries were dead dead dead. Despite the fact that the film was unused, there wasn't enough juice within it to actually make a picture. Sad.
So where does that leave me? I now have two Polaroid cameras and no film for them (at least not until The Impossible Project gets production started up again; I'm keeping my fingers crossed). On the up side, though, I do love the cameras. And to make the ending even happier, all of this prompted me to finally go ahead and buy some (very affordable, even with processing) 127 film for my 1958 Bell and Howell Electric Eye camera. I'm looking forward to capturing some great Christmas memories with this guy!
Plus, Polaroid cameras look pretty cool on a shelf.
8 comments:
I've always wanted a polaroid camera...do you remember those cameras that were popular back in middle school ('97-'00 for me)? The ones that were tiny pictures, but they were stickers, too? I wanted one of those so badly! I would be more than thrilled to get a polaroid these days...or hell, a decent digital :)
Not only do cameras look cool, they do amazing things! Yay for cameras!
I love polarids - I have the tiny one - the izone, and I'd love to get more film for it, but it's hard to come by and expensive when you do.
Perhaps you could take the now empty working film cartridge from the first camera and transfer the unexposed film from the second cartridge into it?
Oh yeah, I had an iZone in college (suddenly I feel old) - I remember sticking those little pictures all over my dorm room. I wonder what happened to that camera?
Lyddie, that is brilliant! Argh, if only I hadn't idiotically thrown away both cartridges. I bet that would have worked. Bah, dumb me.
great finds! Too bad about the batteries, but I'm sure you'll get something running sooner or later. You're going to post your Electric Eye shots, right? Have a great and merry week!
There is still plenty of film available on ebay. :)
Urban Outfitters sells 779 which fits 600 cameras.
Good luck with finding some!
Oh, I will definitely post the electric eye shots (assuming that they turn out, that is. This is the first time I've tried it, so we'll see!).
Yeah, Amanda, I've done some ebay bidding, but sadly just can't justify the price. Too bad!
I know I'm late to this, but I found some Polaroid film at Unique Photo for $24. Still expensive, but less than $35. Nothing quite says "1970s" like the Polaroid.
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