Tag Archives: polaroid frame

Vintage Polaroid Cameras And Film In The Days Of The iPhone

I am a collector of vintage cameras. No particular year or style, the cameras in my collection are only limited by my interest in the particular tech. When it is possible to locate film that will work, I actually take some out of the collection to shoot with. The fun of film is the planning and non-instant-gratification. For those times that I want to mix vintage with a instant view of my shots, I break out one of my Polaroids. Initially, this meant using expired film, then Impossible Project started producing Polaroid style film, but it had exposure issues (well, I had problems, others where happier). Recently, Impossible Project has added a coating to their film making the final results much better.

A few of my shooters –

01 Polaroid

02 Polaroid

Results vary, but when Luna will sit still long enough, she loves when the camera comes out –

03 PolaroidOf course, there is an app for that too. Not just one Instant Polaroid effect iPhone app, but many many… many. Most are just ‘frames’ apps to wrap a photo in a Polaroid trademarked paper frame. Instant – The Polaroid Instant Camera is an app that I tend to play with when I want to add the realistic vintage effect when shooting with my iPhone.

04 Instant Polaroid

Along with the exposure/film type, Instant lets you add all of the particulars that make the photo deliver the message your looking for. Color the frame ‘paper’, and add wear via blotches, wrinkles and even finger prints. Then a bit of handwriting text for a final touch.

05 Instant Polaroid

If the fun of vintage film photography is something you enjoy, narrowed down to Polaroid particularly, you may enjoy Polanoid.net . A site that has Polaroid camera users all over the world submitting their snapshots for you to enjoy.

06 Polaroid dot net

The Polanoid.net site has what seems like an endless list of Polaroid film captures. The images are grouped by camera type as well as photographer. Fun to see new and old photos and the creative work people do with instant photography.

07 Polaroid dot net

Your iPhone photos printed to Polaroid like paper frames

As I mentioned at the beginning of the Stickygram article, there are a lot of printing service options for your Instagram photos. While this solution prints square photos, they aren’t limiting you to just those uploaded Instagram services images. The service, Printic, offers a free iPhone app to gather and adjust your photos. Then, for 99 cents each minimum of 3, they will print and mail for you. I tried the service with a few for a friend who isn’t on Instagram rather than back to me.

Printic requires an Account Setup, then offers access to choose a photo from the iPhone photo library, Instagram and Facebook.

01 printic iPhone

Selected photos appear in a running bar across the bottom of the page. Selecting the ‘pencil’ icon in the lower right corner pops up Edit tools for each picture. Printic allows Cropping, Quantity, Text and Delete.

02 printic iPhone

One of the popular things to do when sharing a Polaroid (and a feature found in most imitation Polaroid creating apps) is ‘writing’ a short message on the open box area below the photo. Printic offers this as well.

03 printic iPhone

When your done editing the photos, add your payment information, then where you will be sending the photos. It is optional to have the photos sent to multiple addresses so Printic could be a creative way of doing invites or announcements too.

04 printic iPhone
I always wonder about the licensing a company has to do in order to create apps and services which allow printing to a photo frame that mimics a Polaroid. Polaroid took the time to big shoe me when I had artwork on CafePress for sale which had a Polaroid in the corner of the image. They stated that they own all representations of the frame.

For iPhone users that are fans of Bokeh photography, Lumiè has you covered!

The Bokeh effect is a blur… with a bit of classic flare. Not the blur I have been covering in the past where your attempting depth, rather the blur you get a lot with old Polaroid photographs. A flash of light from a source you didn’t expect that causes a artistic wash out. I use it a lot with my black and white photography, In the case of the art of Bokeh effect photography, the bright areas get some flare with shapes. These are those fun circles, hearts, stars and streaks of light dancing around a photograph. Not for everyone’s taste, but done right the images can be unique and thought provoking… oh yea, and cute fun too.

The Lumiè app (iPhone only) takes the uncertainty of getting the effect right when photographing and moves the effect to a series of filters. You can take a photo through the app or import from the iPhone photo library. Lumiè wants a square photo so the first step after import is to crop the photo, than onto the ‘effects’. Sweep your finger across the screen to choose an effect… there are many to choose from. Tap one to select, if you don’t like the effect, just tap the image to bring up the chooser again. There is also a picker in the lower left corner for the the image to be ‘normal’, ‘dark’, or add ‘sparkle’ to the filter.

The final image can be save and shared by it’s self or with a ‘paper’ frame similar to those old Polaroids. Sharing can be done directly from Lumiè to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Timblr, save to your iPhone photo library or attach to an email.