YES! I finally can say, that I’m the owner of THE ultra vintage photographic accessory of all time:

The instant camera!

I always wanted to have my own instant camera, but never bought one (please don’t ask me why, because I don’t even have an answer to this question…). Last week it suddenly came to my mind again, that I always, always wanted to have one, but never, never bought one so far. “What the hell!? What are you waiting for? Just get one finally!”. So I did. “Bam! In the shopping cart!”. I decided to get the Fujifilm Instax 210, which I actually had on my wish list for a while already. Honestly, I am not the one, who is reading all the product descriptions and what all the other customers, who bought it before, think about this camera. I wanna make up my own mind about something new. I’m also only interested in one thing: The pictures! What I love about instant cameras, is their vintage looking pictures. That’s the only thing I care about and that’s all you should care about, if you’re planning on getting one. Sure, I also read a tiny bit about the technical specifications, but not that much. “It’s an instant camera, you can’t expect anything incredibly huge!”, was what I said to myself. You just can’t expect a mind-blowing quality. An instant camera is all about vintage and fun. It’s about that moment, when this little picture slowly pops out of your camera (amazingly noisy on top of it!) and you just shake it as if there would be no tomorrow, until this piece of white paper magicly turns into a photography. Don’t we all just love it!

So when my baby arrived, the first thought I had was: “Wow, that’s a big package! Did I order two by mistake?”. I opened it up right away and was…shocked. “Holy crap!!! What is this beast?! I can murder someone with that!”. I immediately forgot about my plan putting it into my little purse that night, when I wanted to go out with my friends and putting it to the acid test. “Well, that won’t ever fit…”. The Fujifilm is actually bigger than my Canon, which made me laugh and desperate at the same time, because I wanted to have a kind of smaller camera, I can take with me, when I go out, because I’m way too afraid of taking my beloved DSLR-camera. You have to know, that I’m the biggest clumsy fellow of all time and keep breaking things, so combined this with alcohol, my Canon would end up tragic and I’d probably end up suicidal! When I arrived at my friends place and showed them this massive piece of what we have to call a camera, they were as shocked as me. “Oh my God! That thing is huge!!!”. I started laughing and told them, that this was my reaction as well. “Well, but didn’t you read anything about the measurements?”, is what my friend asked me. I felt dumb and said, that I didn’t, because I never do. “I knew, that it would be kinda big, but not thaaaaat huge.” She looked at me smiling and probably thought, that I’m an idiot and should start doing that. Maybe I should….

I was thinking about a plan how to carry my new bulky item with me and asked my friends, if they had a little bag for me, because I didnt’t want to take my huge bagpack. “You can have this little “backpack” made out of cotton, if you’d like to put your little pocket-camera in there.”. A nickname and running gag was born, which came up from time to time that night. No matter when I was taking pictures, people were starring at me, probably thinking, that I’d blow up the entire place with pressing the release button. My friends and I cracked up about this incredibly loud sound, every time, the pictures came out. You could even hear it in loud crowded bars. When we were at this amazing Irish pub called “Tír na nÓg”, I asked the waiter, if he’d mind taking a picture of us. He said yes and put his tray down. As he turned back around and saw the camera, he started laughing. “Oh wow! But you guys will be still alive afterwards?”. We were, but I guess, only because we’ve already been at “Tír na nÓg”!

All in all, I can say, that it’s really hard, getting used to the fact, that I’m not able taking pictures every time, I want to and no matter when I see something pretty. It was good having my friends with me, who were stopping me from going all crazy and being caught up in this ectasy of photographing. I’d have taken all pictures in probably a second. It really is like a toy, you wanna explore and figure out, but you have to hold yourself back, because these films are super expensive (20 pictures for 16 Euros!). Times have changed and we now are all used to the luxury of taking as many pictures as we want, because digital cameras are allowing us to. I thought of all the photographers from back in the days and what a great eye they must have had, because they were paying perfect attention and only took a picture of something, that seemed amazing to them. Something, they had to capture and keep forever. This way of thinking got lost these days, but that’s okay I guess. But having an instant camera gives you back this kind of special feeling, all these photographers must have had back then and to me, every photographer should have an instant camera. So, if anyone of you guys has one on their amazon wish list, just put it in your shopping cart and buy it. It’s affordable and definitely fun!