Polaroids. (Patreon)

I took at least ten photos of my cat today, trying to catch him doing something cute so I could share it instantly with friends around the world who, like myself, are staying in place, distanced during the Covid pandemic. My cat, cute and lovable though he is, suffers from being the world's biggest jerk and would move every time I had the shot lined up, a blurry, hairless ghost disappearing out of frame. Had I chosen to attempt more cat pinups, I would have had room on my iPhone for approximately 71k more chances at catching him in massima dolcezza.

Much like walking up hill for miles in the snow to get to school, the back in my day lesson from that is that there was a time when taking photos was, frankly, a pain in the ass. An expensive pain in the ass. Back in the 1940s, when young Roland Loomis (who later became Yogi Ankora, and later still Fakir Musafar) was beginning his self documentation, film was rationed. Beyond that, professional lab processing was out of the question due to the corporeal nature of the self portraiture. (Fakir learned to develop his own film) 

By 1948- when Fakir would have been 18- the Polaroid Land Model 95 camera and instant film  technology was born and was an instant success; at launch, all available models and film supply sold out in one day.  While there's no way to fact check the wildly speculative statement I'm about to make, you can bet that about two minutes after that first Land Model 95 was taken out of the packaging, a nude photo was taken with it. 

Instant film gave much needed quarter to folks who were taking photos that were outside of the conventional morality of the time; be it gay couples who were afraid of risking a trip to the photomat to develop their casual snapshots, swingers and nudists who documented their lifestyle, or body mod devotees afraid of exposing their private art and rituals with the staff of their local hour developer. They also brought an immediacy to the documentation- a cartridge of film and a strip of flash bulbs and you could see the fruits of your photographic labor in minutes. 

From a history geek perspective, there's also an intimate connection with the subject of the Polaroid print- when you're holding one of these you're connected directly to Viking Navaro, one step away from him, decked out in his cowboy hat, septum tusk, or Viking Helmet, holding the same print he held as it came out of the camera, as the image developed, was scrutinized, and set aside for the next round of photos. 

A lot of times I focus on the images themselves; dynamic subjects like Bud Navaro in all of his  nose-horned glory. But sometimes its nice to pull back the camera (ok. bad pun) and look at the artifacts themselves. 

I still never got a good photo of the cat.