For The Record- 07. September. 2024

Don't like the look of this old town. What goes up must come down

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KA~

I recently read an article in the Iowa Review about a guy who found an old Polaroid camera at his parents' house. He was unsure what to do with it, so for a while, he did what most of us would've done: He left it in his closet.

The narrative arc was one weaving the technical development of the camera itself into the timeline of his parent's lives. The elements were there: time marched on, everything was ephemeral, etc.

One of the things I was struck by was how much work it used to take to take a picture.

You had to load the film.

You had to find flash cubes.

You took the picture, blinding your friends with those/cubes.

Then you waited. Maybe it worked out well, and maybe it didn't, but there was no deleting it, no infinite number of retakes, and definitely no filters. You had a great picture, or you didn't. Maybe everyone had red eyes, or there was a thumbprint in the upper left corner. As the author noted, sometimes, you pulled the film off too soon.

Maybe you didn't shake it like a Polaroid picture correctly, and it was that deep blue or whatever.

To me, that risk is what makes it all interesting.