Our Vintage Photo Booth with the Iconic Polaroid

Posted 11/14/14 in: New Jersey New York

At a recent holiday party in Rye, NY, we set-up our vintage photo booth at a fundraising event based on the movie, American Hustle.  Aside from the fabulous costumes (check out this blog post on fashion from the film http://www.onestyleatatime.com/2013/12/fashion-on-film-american-hustle-70s.html) and retro-style Casino set-up (www.acedeucecasinos.com), we found several Polaroid Pic-300 Instant cameras (http://www.polaroid.com/products/pic-300-instant-camera) floating around the room to compliment our vintage photo booth.  I had a ton of fun playing with this camera, and I was able to photo graph people jumping in and out of our photo booth throughout the course of the evening.  I started researching some of the reasons why the Polaroid cameras are making a huge comeback and came across two main reasons.

1) According to a recent article from the Guardian by Tess Reidy (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/nov/08/why-stars-love-polaroid-no-embarrassing-uploads), celebs are loving the retro-chic Polaroid because it offers something extremely valuable for famous people: privacy.  In the wake of recent photo hacking scandals, celebs and others are apparently gravitating to the instant prints to enjoy photos without fears of having digital files plastered all over the internet without their consent.

2) Another reason is a public shift for tangible, physical photographs.  In this digital world, there is an important sub-culture of nostalgic folks looking to revive the more classic technologies like vinyl records and polaroid cameras (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2400059/Return-Polaroid-Fujifilm-resurrects-iconic-camera-print-card-sized-photos-instantly.html).  Having a tangible, high-quality photo offers a different experience altogether than capturing photos digitally.  The Polaroid not only captures the moment, but offers a meaningful and personalized take away.

Our classic photo booth attempts to do both things.  We love our photo booth and the classic experience of sitting down, closing a curtain, and pressing a button.  Simple, fun, elegant, and private.  We also love watching people wait for their photos to print and the reaction when they reach into the slot and grab their instant photo!  Sheer joy!  While are vintage photo booth uses digital technology, we certainly have a deep appreciation for the classic Polaroid and its contribution to the world of photography.

Snap shots of guests hanging around our vintage photo booth with the classic Polaroid prints!
Snap shots of guests hanging around our vintage photo booth with the classic Polaroid prints!