chuckography

Film..Digital..anything else?

Photography has been part of my life for more than 50 years and this blog has covered some of that ground.

At the Scottish Games last weekend I was reminded that during the transition from cranking a roll of film through a camera, and now, marveling at digital speed and clarity, there also was an intermediate step. It's called Polaroid.

While today's digital IS instant, Polaroid started with 60 second black and white. You waited for them to slowly, eerily appear on the piece of paper you tugged out of the camera and then waved in the air to make it dry faster.


In fact, my first time using it was in the 1950s and you actually spread a sticky, waxy coating over the picture to give it a "glossy" shiny look. Wow. Couldn't get any better than THAT!

The first ones I created even were trimmed with a deckle edge so they looked closer to what you picked up a week later after dropping your film off at Walgreen's.

You still can buy a Polaroid camera on e-bay but I believe they stopped making the "magic" film.

Labels: 1950s, 60-second pictures, black and white, deckle-edge, e-bay, Polaroid, Walgreen's

posted by chucker @ 3:53 PM