The Instant Shot

By the time I was in Dougherty Junior High and Dougherty High School, I was taking photos with my own Kodak Instamatic. Introduced in 1963, the Instamatic conveniently allowed amateur photographers an easy way to "instantly" load and unload conventional film. The quirky - and sometimes unreliable - parts were the various flash bulbs and "cubes" during the years that my friends and I had those cameras. I used the Instamatic until the early 1970s when my young husband gave me my first 35 mm camera; however, the Kodak Instamatic lived on with a new model each year until 1988. From these humble beginnings, my love for photography grew.

Kodak Instamatic

I, of course, still have the photographs from those years. The color has faded, and the images are certainly not as sharp as today's digital photos. The important part is that those photographs tell the stories of my teens and early twenties - of my family, my early and long-lasting friendships, the courtship with my one and only sweetheart. Those Instamatic images are a fairly appropriate life metaphor about today - the color has faded, and the images are certainly not as sharp, but the love of life continues.

Did you have an Instamatic camera? What are your favorite photographing memories?

Here are two of mine.

Six Flags - Georgia, 1967

 

University of South Carolina, 1972