Exploring Craftcation on film

I first fell in love with instant cameras in high school. Back then, I took photos on an old DSLR camera that my dad passed down to me. I’d shoot a roll of film then drop it off at the drugstore to be developed (which took about a week!).

Way more often than a 16-year-old who had a part-time job working at a vintage clothing store for minimum wage should have, I let my impatience get the best of me and sprung for next day developing. I’m sure it’s hard for anyone whose teenage life wasn’t revolutionized by the cordless phone (finally I could retreat to my bedroom for a bit privacy instead of whispering into the only phone in the house which was in the constantly occupied kitchen) to imagine a world where seeing your photos the next day was considered fast.

The instant camera solved that waiting problem for me. I took a photo and it popped out immediately. Of course there was that 45 (or so) seconds that I stood there gently waving the photo and watching the image slowly rise from the white blankness.

I still used my dad’s DSLR but my instant camera went with me everywhere from the time I was 16 until my mid-30s when I got my first iPhone and I could finally wave goodbye to the days of pixelated flip phone photos. For the next few years, my instant camera gathered dust while I dove into the immediacy and possibilities of shooting and editing photos with my iPhone.

But, something was missing. Sure, I could see the photo the second I clicked the shutter but I was missing two things that I didn’t even realize were so important to me.

1. Having an actual physical photograph not just to touch but also to display on my fridge or in a frame on a shelf or to use as a part of a DIY craft project.
2. The ability to take an endless amount of photos on my iPhone took the pressure off my own photo skills (and not in a good way). I was relying too much on the camera and the ability it gave me to be able to review the photo, make adjustments and take another photo right away. I didn’t have to call upon the skills I learned in my high school photo class and built upon over the years of composition, balance, lighting, color etc.

I went back to my roots and rediscovered my love for instant camera photography. I upgraded and got a FUJIFILM Instax® Mini 8. I also found a way to hold onto the ease of shooting and editing on my iPhone and the tangibility and speed of instant photo developing and got a FUJIFILM Instax® SHARE SP-3 SQ printer which prints photos from my phone onto instant photo film. The best of both worlds!

Once again I was spending time composing each shot and trying to get it just right. Not only did my skills start improving but I also started displaying photos in my house again and got creative with some DIY projects. Naturally I wanted to share my love for instant photography with our community so I asked three of our presenters, Amy Tan of Amy Tangerine, Rachel Smith of The Crafted Life and Sarah Deragon of Portraits To The People. from our annual Craftcation Conference to document some of their experiences at Craftcation with FUJIFILM Instax® cameras and printers. All three did an awesome job capturing their experiences!

Attendees also had several opportunities to get to know FUJIFILM Instax® cameras and printers in Craftcation workshops lead by Amy Tangerine, Pam Garrison and Sarah Deragon, at our Saturday night Golden Girls themed party where attendees could hop in the photo booth with Rose, Blanche, Sophia and Dorothy and snap photos using a FUJIFILM Instax® Mini 70 and we had a camera lending library in our pop-up shop where attendees could borrow a FUJIFILM Instax® SQUARE SQ10, FUJIFILM Instax® Mini 70 or FUJIFILM Instax® Wide 300 for a few hours as well as add their photos to an interactive display board.

I’m so excited to share photos from all of those activities at Craftcation with you all! I also created some diptychs and triptychs, I love the juxtaposition of images!

FUJIFILM Instax® CAMERA GIVEAWAY! (*THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED, CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS)

We’re giving away two FUJIFILM Instax® Wide 300 and two FUJIFILM Instax® SQUARE SQ10 cameras! To enter to win one of these cameras, just leave a comment at the bottom of the post letting us know where you want to take your new camera to capture your life’s awesome moments. *Leave your comment below by June 25, 2018 and we’ll enter you in the contest. Be sure to leave your email address in your profile so we can contact you if you win!

Amy Tangerine used FUJIFILM Instax® cameras and printers in her Traveler’s Notebook workshop and snapped photos with her FUJIFILM Instax® Wide 300 of her students and supplies.

Rachel Smith used a FUJIFILM Instax® Mini 70 to document her time at Craftcation and shared her thoughts about her experience:

“Craftcation is so fun for a lot of reasons, but the most appealing aspect is that it’s a conference that thinks outside of the box. Not only can you take dream DIY workshops, but there are clever handmade elements all throughout the hotel. The Wanderings event, where select attendees transform their rooms into theme experiences, is by far one of my favorite things every year. It’s always so amazing and inspiring to be around other creatives and to get a feel for how people approach the same project, in a completely different way. I’m never not blown away, so this year I wanted to carry around myFUJIFILM Instax® Mini 70, so that I could capture it all!” – Rachel Smith (The Crafted Life)

Every morning at Craftcation, Sarah Deragon would text me and let me know that she’d left photos for me at the front desk of the hotel. Talk about an amazing way to wake up! Sarah carried her FUJIFILM Instax® SQUARE SQ10 and FUJIFILM Instax® Mini 70 to her iPhoneography and Photo Walking Tour workshops and with her throughout the conference as well as shot photos on her iPhone and printed them on her FUJIFILM Instax® SHARE SP-3 SQ printer. I shouldn’t have been surprised at how awesome Sarah’s photos are (after all she is a professional photographer) but they still blew my mind! 

Throughout the conference attendees could borrow a  FUJIFILM Instax® SQUARE SQ10, FUJIFILM Instax® Mini 70 or FUJIFILM Instax® Wide 300 from our lending library in the pop-up shop and add them to our Make it Awesome photo board! *The image of the photo board is from day one, by the end of the conference is was full of so many awesome images!

There were so many cool (and hilarious) photos from the dance party photo booth that it was hard to choose a handful to share here. So many great costumes but here are some highlights.