Roid Week Celebrating Instant Film

A few weeks ago was "Roid Week 2024" on Flickr, a week where they celebrate all things instant film. They have actually been doing this since 2006, but this was the first year I decided to participate.

On a side note, Flickr is one of those rare, underrated communities that has managed to stay true to its focus and audience: photography. They had some middle years of being acquired by Yahoo, which almost killed them off completely, but they have reemerged with what seems like a great partnership with Awesome Company and SmugMug. Anyway, they organize events like this all the time on Flickr, and they tend to be great exercises.

Instant film is an interesting medium. It has its own quirks like positive/negative film, including limitations on image quality, cameras, film stock, cost (it's actually more expensive than 35mm film), and overall options available. In the end, photography is photography, and the gear doesn't matter; you still have to make a good composition, have a clear subject, and light the subject well.

I shot with two different cameras: a Fujifilm Instax Wide 300 for the first two shots below and a Polaroid OneStep with new Polaroid 600 film stock. I expected the Polaroid 600 to have a much better dynamic range than the Fujifilm Instax Wide 300, and it did, to an extent.

One of the hardest parts was getting a good composition and enough light to take the photos, but then not really being able to take more than one shot for each composition was tough as well. Each image costs about $2.00 (USD) and comes in packs of 8 or 10 prints, making it hard to just blow through a pack of film. But that wasn't the hardest part; the hardest part was getting these prints "scanned" and into a digital form that I could use. I ended up doing a sort of duplication setup with my Nikon and macro lens, but I never quite got it right. I got it right enough to post online, but there was always some added light leak or flare—some artifact introduced by the "scanning" process.

I'm still pretty happy with the images I created. The first one received the most feedback and views on Flickr. I'm not sure why, but the composition was one of the better ones of the week, even though it was the very first image I took. The Polaroid shots were much better in color and contrast, and in that respect, I like them for what they are: classic-looking Polaroids. Where they suffered was in light capture. The camera I'm using has a blasting flash that goes off with every shot, so you can't use it for fill flash or turn it off and do a longer exposure. It is what it is, and it shows. But that's classic Polaroid too.

It was a great exercise. Part of me wondered if I would get really excited about shooting a lot more Polaroid film. New Polaroid cameras are being produced with more options (though they aren't cheap for what they do). In the end, I liked them, but not enough to dive into the deep end of Polaroid film. I would rather stay in the middle ground of 35mm film, where you have a film look and feel but at a more reasonable price and much higher quality. You can see the full size image gallery on Flickr. I didn't quite get 2 images a day for a week, I ended up with 10 images in total (2 Instax and a full pack of Polaroid 600 film, 8 images).

I have a lot of respect for Polaroid photographers. What got me more interested in Polaroid film for this week on Flickr was the photography of Andrei Tarkovsky, who did a series of Polaroids in the 1970s that are still inspiring today (also check out [Visual Romanticism as a Subversive Affect

The Polaroids of Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979-1983](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/the-polaroids-of-andrei-tarkovsky-1979-1983/) if you're interested in that kind of thing). I love that about photography. Images that are well-composed, tell a story, and capture the intangible effects of light and time can be incredible regardless of gear or circumstances. To a certain extent, of course.

Fujifilm Instax Wide 300

Polaroid Color 600

Featured Image