The humanity of instant photography

Polaroid Flip and Now+ 3

I got into Polaroid and Instax photography partially out of nostalgia for my youth but mainly for curiosity and fun, without any expectation for inspiring results.

Pretty soon I realized how serious and powerful the instant analogue photography can be. Its unique and special main characteristic is irreproducibility.

Fujifilm Instax Wide 400

In principle, analogue film and digital photography allow the reproduction of an infinite number of physical copies of the same exact image. With analogue instant camera, that is simply impossible.

I find this unicity so extraordinary human and an exceptional added value.

Imperfection and, up to same extend, unpredictability are the other attractive characteristics. Exposing, framing, focusing, colors are almost never perfect with these cameras and still the pictures are, most of the time, good, attractive and interesting.

Just like us, humans.

From a creative perspective, the potential is immense, but I particularly love those human traits: unicity and imperfection. I ultimately believe this humanity is the reason behind my love for the analogue instant photography.

And just as our life, it is not always easy to get what you expect but sometimes, or maybe most of the time, the unexpected and unplanned is far much pleasant than we had imagined.

Scanned Instax Wide 400 picture