the very first picture of me was a polaroid, shot with the same onestep i've been using for the last year, when i was six hours old in my mum's arms. an omen, perhaps?

the first two to three years of my life were captured with that onestep as well--sleeping, bathing, me with my mum or dad, summer pictures, winter pictures...all that loveliness.

the camera wouldn't get use again for another quarter-century. in that interim, virtually any photo of me my parents took was taken with a 35mm SLR; and while i do have an affinity for 35mm as well, instant photography continues to fascinate me. image transfers, emulsion lifts, sx-70 manipulations...all made possible by polaroid film and, ultimately, dr. edwin land.

for a while i've been fearing that i came into the world of instant photography too late. a year before i started getting into it seriously, sx-70 and time zero film, which my onestep (and the other varieties of sx-70 cameras) took, went bye-bye. but then the sx-70 blend film was commissioned by polanoid and unsaleable, not to mention 600 and 779 film were still around, so there was a light at the end of the viewfinder. ;) then last month came the body blow: ALL polaroid's instant film was to say goodbye.

i'm a very stubborn woman sometimes. i don't want to say goodbye to instant film forever. did traditional painting die when photography or photoshop and painter were invented? have 35mm, 120, 620, and (to a point) 110 photography died thanks to digital? NO. so why should those of us who shoot instant film have to give that up because of digital? i don't want to give up using my onestep or spectra.

before there was digital, there was polaroid. let's keep instant film alive. save polaroid.

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