Last week I received a Christmas present from my very best friend. “Christmas?” you say? Yeah, Christmas…because we’re really, really bad at sending presents out on time! So last week I got a surprise in the mail! I opened the box and I melted! It was an Instax Mini camera. A beautiful powder blue bubble of photography inspiration!

I gently removed it from the box, put the batteries in and took a very bad overblown picture of a cat. And then I excitedly texted him to tell him how much I loved it!

Since that day I bought a whole bunch of film (including a set of rainbow film) and a pretty pink case! It’s been on adventures and it’s taken a few bad selfies!

The thing I love most about this adorable little camera is the simplicity. I’m reminded of being a kid on a road trip with my grandma and her Polaroid OneStep. She let a little tiny Jenny waste all her film and then she and my aunt joked that one day I’d be a great photographer. Honestly I’m not sure if they even remember those days but I do, I have a box tucked under my bed with all those pictures. Pictures of clouds, a field with horses, a parking lot filled with pink trees for sale, and a stack of pictures of a little cockatiel. My first works of photographic art ever!

The instax mini brings back those days, when settings didn’t matter, the flash always fired, and I could watch my photograph materialize on a white sheet of film right in front of my eyes. It brings back the carefree fun of seeing a thing, shooting a thing, and then having the thing on a picture in your hand to wave around excitedly in people’s faces. There’s no pressure to focus, to think about aperture or shutter speed but it does require that I slow down, keep in mind that I have ten shots, and shoot only what I care to keep.

This adorable little camera has re-sparked a love of imperfection within me. I feel like a happy kid again and honestly, that’s how I want photography to always feel.

Much love,

Jenny the Time Traveling Pirate