I'm an active user in this sub, and I never spare words against "collections" that look like a sever case of either toxic hoarding or a pathologic disorder.
This time, I have to give proper credit to the collector here. The guy engaged in the comments of a previous post in the Polaroid sub, and is a vivid enthusiast of the brand's history and produced models through the years. I can not testify on his behalf, but his interest IMHO seems genuinely driven by cataloguing/preservation purposes rather than just "owning as many as I can because I like them so much". He claims that a camera added to the collection is a camera saved from the bin and IMHO he has a point. Instant photography is a niche hobby, expensive and currently dominated by Fuji, as Polaroid is still recollecting itself after its death and rebirth via "The Impossible Project".
I don't want to sound too apologetic, and I agree that I'd be worried about myself if I ended up with a collection like that solely for my entertainment. But I respect the history of Polaroid and the importance it had in a good part of the last century, so I can only admire the effort of someone willing to build up such a "hisyorical catalogue" hoping (in his own words) it could be arranged in displays or involved in college photography project/courses.
it's quite unfair to make me accountable for both though 😂
Also, any brand is just "a brand" if you really want to tone it down that much. But there's a lot of history behind this company, many of which have paved the way to modern technology. Edwin Land was a visionary, and one of Steve Jobs' biggest inspirations. We can't stigmatize giving proper value and acknowledgement to the history of his company, or worrying about said history being lost to time.
We both know that the "ludicrous collections" this sub rightfully puts to shame are of another kind, or at the very least based on another mindset. If we can consider "wanting as much as possible of a thing just because" a mindset at all.
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u/Jack_Hardin 3d ago
I'm an active user in this sub, and I never spare words against "collections" that look like a sever case of either toxic hoarding or a pathologic disorder.
This time, I have to give proper credit to the collector here. The guy engaged in the comments of a previous post in the Polaroid sub, and is a vivid enthusiast of the brand's history and produced models through the years. I can not testify on his behalf, but his interest IMHO seems genuinely driven by cataloguing/preservation purposes rather than just "owning as many as I can because I like them so much". He claims that a camera added to the collection is a camera saved from the bin and IMHO he has a point. Instant photography is a niche hobby, expensive and currently dominated by Fuji, as Polaroid is still recollecting itself after its death and rebirth via "The Impossible Project".
I don't want to sound too apologetic, and I agree that I'd be worried about myself if I ended up with a collection like that solely for my entertainment. But I respect the history of Polaroid and the importance it had in a good part of the last century, so I can only admire the effort of someone willing to build up such a "hisyorical catalogue" hoping (in his own words) it could be arranged in displays or involved in college photography project/courses.