Poladroid

Definitely skip this post if you already know all about Poladroid. 

If you don't, let me explain...

It is an application that lets you develop your own polaroids. You can't do them in bulk - each photo must be put into the camera individually. After a moment, the camera spits out the polaroid and you can watch it slowly develop on your desktop. You can also shake it around to make it dry faster. If you put the same photo in 3 times it may come out 3 very different ways. Just like a real polaroid...only not costing you a fortune. 

It's a wonderful time waster because as you waste time, you are actually creating something beautiful. 

Poladroid can be downloaded from here and installed in a matter of seconds. 

It is sort of sad that the iconic Polaroid camera has been reduced to a computer application. You could argue that because you don't end up with a lovely instant photo in your hands, the Poladroid camera is just contributing to the death of film. But if anything, this application has made me more appreciative of the Polaroid camera and if I see one for sale I will certainly try and buy one.

I was on a shoot last week where the photographer told me that these days when she tells clients that they will receive the proofs in a week or so, the clients don't understand why they have to wait a week, and sometimes don't know what proofs are. To clarify, proofs are sheets with test prints of the photos in small sizes. The client will usually go through and select which ones to use, and these are printed out in a high resolution and large size, or, these days, scanned to file.