Blog #86: Polaroids

I really love polaroids. I know it's kind of the trendy thing at the moment or whatever, but I've loved them since I was a kid (and they weren't 'vintage' like they are now- I remember my kindergarten teacher using a polaroid camera to take pictures of students for projects and things).

I think the reason I love polaroid cameras is because I just love pictures in general. Not phone pictures or instagram pictures but real, physical pictures you can hold in your hand. There is something special about holding a moment, a memory... about squeezing the corner of a picture between your thumb and pointer finger so as to not smudge the rest of the image.

When I was young I used to beg my mom to dig up boxes of old photos. I didn't even care who I was looking at- I just wanted to look at them. If I see a photo album at somebody's house, I can't help but take a peek. Even this last Christmas, I started looking at a few old pictures of my grandmother's stashed away in a drawer, and before I knew it, I started a house-wide hunt for any old picture we could get our hands on, and the family spent hours looking at pictures they hadn't seen in decades, or maybe had never actually seen. I could listen for hours to the stories behind each picture. (Like my uncle riding his bike off the high dive at the pool, or my sister sitting inside of my grandma's fridge eating grapes with swim goggles on.) Seriously... there's just something about pictures.

So, that being said, I love my polaroid camera. I've captured a lot of great moments with it, and I love the instant gratification of immediately having a physical photograph to hold in my hand. Most of my pictures are posed, but I think they still reflect the memories of the time they were taken. I have a few favorites, like my family Christmas ones and an actual candid of people dancing in my apartment, but they're all actually very special to me, and I love the sentimentality of them.

So yeah, I love polaroids. Maybe that makes me 'basic'. Sue me.

I mean just LOOK AT THIS PICTURE it is a mood and a half.