One of the most nostalgic things of the 90’s and early 00’s was capturing your memories with a yellow or green throw away camera that held 24 pictures each. If you were a girl on her way to a dance, you made it your most important accessory. You kept in your bra until the lens became so fuzzy from the sweat of dancing the night away, that all your end pictures looked like they were taken by a fog machine. Or maybe you just used it for a night in with your friends dressing up in weird clothes, having a hilarious fashion show that made you laugh until it hurt. I mean I can only speak from my our experiences but no matter what you did, it was an amazing way to keep the memories alive forever.

Before the era of instant gratification, these cameras helped you really lived in the moment more than ever. Every event that you brought your disposable camera to, you knew those memories would have more meaning and last forever. Say you went to Prom. Most of the time, those nights you were on a life high and loving every minute of the music and fun and laughs. When the night was getting close to the end, you prayed that they would play “just one more song”. You usually had a sleepover with all your friends and talked about your favorite moments or all the drama and just slept with a smile on your face that night. The next morning, you rushed to Walgreens or CVS and did the one hour photo. God’s greatest gift to any fun loving teenager. You would go back and get them as fast as you could. You would look through the pictures for hours with your friends. You would bring them to school that week and the memories would last until the next major event. It was a small form of time travel in a weird way. I was always the “photographer” of my group of friends so my bedroom walls were covered in pictures from top to bottom. I loved these cameras! I honestly wonder how much money I spent on all of them… Actually, I don’t want to know.

Years 2002-2006. Prime disposable camera time period. Double chins and “I think I blinked” moments were very much alive

Recently, I got some of my pictures developed from throw away cameras, I bought/ was gifted as sort of a fun nostalgic thing. WHOA BABY! Those things aren’t cheap nowadays. You have to have them sent out and you don’t usually get them back for 2 weeks. I got five cameras developed and it cost me $78. That’s insane right? To pay that much money for something that you don’t even know how good or bad the pictures turned out! But I did it. It’s lost some of the magic from all the hoops you had to jump through to get the pictures. It’s not something I could do every week like I use to. I gotta say, the pictures were still fun to look through but only half of them, I would want to share the world. But all the pictures do have a built in filter so I’m half way there to my perfect Instagram post! Also, some of the cameras come with themes now such as “party” or “cats” which means that pictures with have fun designs or boarders or random shapes throughout them. I obviously got the cat themed one. And it was pretty worth it. Some of these cameras are like 4 years old, so it was fun to figure out what night the pictures were from. Like my own little mystery. The biggest problem I would say, is your selfie game is a little rough. About 87% of the time, someone will have a double chin. And you have no idea because you can’t see it and you also don’t think to maybe take a second for safety because you don’t want to waste film. So if you want to feel super great about yourself, disposable cameras might not be for you. If you do get the party started and you bring your throw away along for the adventure, people will get very excited and pose all night with you. Also it’s a great ice breaker. It’s a reminder that you should capture all moments and not just the ones that you can on your phone. It’s all a surprise! Plus they last a lot longer than a night and usually have 4 or 5 event on them which is more organic. Even more than before since it’s no longer second nature.

So does it still hold up? I would say yes and no. It’s lost some of it’s magic and it’s a lot more work than it use to be but it’s still a surprise and there are always some in the batch that will make you smile. So I recommend doing this like once or twice a year because some memories should last forever and when they are printed that seems more likely. Plus it gives you a break from technology like the good ‘ol days. And the pictures are usually super candid which makes far more interesting. So get out there and snap away! Don’t forget to say cheese!

Years 2013-2016. Prime time for longing for past. Hashtag no filter needed.