God Bless Poladroid

I once bought a Polaroid Spectra 2 for 5 bucks at a flea market, eager to take instant photos and enjoy the retro feel of the prints. Little did I know that the Polaroid technology and its accessories were more expensive than I thought…

Now that the Polaroid factories have closed all the cartridges and films that are out there are the only ones in existence! Which means that they are increasingly difficult to find, and when you do, they’re damn expensive (20 buck or more for a roll of 10 pictures!!).

Thankfully websites like Polapremium allow people to buy cheap(er) films, while initiatives such as Save Polaroid have sought out to collectively buy the Polaroid factories and restart production.

But what can one do in the meantime, apart from buying over-priced cartridges (I just bought a 3-pack for 50-something bucks, it hurts!)? Thankfully people like the geniuses behind Poladroid have come up with a temporary alternative.

This free peace of software allows you to transform your favorite digital shots into retro Polaroid shots, complete with scratches, dents, and random colors. Of course this isn’t the real thing, and no one is trying to pass it off as the real thing (I refer of course to some heated debates here and here).

Anyway, here is my selection of some of my favorite Poladroids: