Introduction

A week into the semester, my digital camera broke. It was a Canon Powershot SD750 that apparently has a manufacturing glitch; if you take the memory card out too many times, then the little switch on the inside indicting whether or not the memory card is locked will break. And being the avid photographer I am, I took the memory card out one too many times. CRAP. Instead of getting a new digital camera right away, I decided to wait and ask for a new one at Christmas.

My broken Canon.
Picture taken with my BlackBerry Curve.

Then, I made plans to go to NY for Thanksgiving. I was pained by the fact that I was going to be in NY without a camera. So, I ordered a Polaroid One Step Express camera kit from Amazon. I thought it would be fun to experiment with an old school model.

My Polaroid camera.
Picture taken with my BlackBerry Curve.

I received the package today and was ecstatic! The camera came with a carrying case, but no film. No worries, right? Wrong. The One Step Express takes Polariod 600 film. I looked at the listings for 600 film and found a 10 pack cost near the amount I paid for the camera. YIKES! So I went to polaroid.com to try and buy it directly from the company. Guess what, Polaroid has discontinued manufacturing all instant film. So, the listings on Amazon are the last instant films in existence! While trying to find the best deals on film, I stumbled upon a review that mentioned a group of people (http://www.the-impossible-project.com/) trying to re-open a Polaroid factory and start re-selling instant film for those of us who still own non-digital Polaroid cameras.

Realizing that I stumbled upon a dying art, I was inspired to create a photography project. Armed with a Polaroid One Step Express and 20 photos of Polaroid 600 film (I ordered a twin pack of 600 film, today, and put it on rush), I will document my first trip to NY. This will be a challenge for me because I've never worked with a Polaroid camera before and I'm limited to only 20 pictures. This goes against my personal photographing style. I'm accustomed to digital cameras where I can take as many pictures as I want and not worry so much about messing up.