My Journey with Instant Photography

I first fell in love with instant photography in 2008. At the time, I was studying photography at Middle Tennessee State University just as Polaroid was closing its doors for what we thought might be forever. I watched my classmates scramble for the remaining supply of film, while I worked three jobs just to afford the materials for my end-of-year portfolio. To think I ever complained about the price of film back then—what was I thinking?! I remember watching a classmate create a beautiful portfolio of Polaroid collages and eavesdropping on conversations about the work of David Hockney. That was only the beginning.

It wasn’t until 2019, about a year after the end of a tumultuous relationship, that I finally decided to treat myself. I had fallen out of love with photography for a while; digital felt “too easy,” and the camera never quite captured the world the way I saw it. For my birthday, I bought my first Instax Mini 90. A month later, I traveled to Poznań, Poland, and created my first instant collage.