When you visit a new city for the first time, you see the city with fresh eyes. Add a photo camera and you try to snap famous landmarks of the city and try to find quirky little alleyways. But when you throw in a Polaroid camera and join a Polaroid photo tour things really get interested.
This was exactly what I did on my first day in Vienna the capital of Austria. It was my first time there and I joined the Urban Polaroid Photo Tour Vienna by Instant Tours and I had a blast. Below I’m going to show you some angles and ideas to demonstrate how much fun the tour was.
I was invited by Sophort Instant Tour to join their Polaroid Photo Tour of Vienna. But as always, all my opinions are my own.
Probe around the Globe uses affiliate links. If you decide to purchase anything via my links, I will earn a small commission. This is at no extra cost to you.
Polaroid Photo Tour Vienna
I only had little time in Vienna and wanted to see as much as possible. It was a lovely sunny day and I took the subway to the meeting point.
We would be exploring a part of Vienna on foot and soon I met our guide who would take us around the city. We were quite a big group and each of us got a Polaroid photo camera and our guide explained the history and making of the Polaroid cameras.
I never really worked with one before so I was very excited to learn some things to do and not to do. The Polaroid photo camera is really simple and easy to use. It only has 2 settings and all you have to do is pull the handle.
Why Polaroid Photography is different than normal photography
After the introduction, we were unleashed to the streets of Vienna.
Each Polaroid photo camera had 8 pictures which didn’t seem like a lot. But it turned out, it was just enough.
We were each very anxious to snap our first picture. We didn’t want to blow it but also didn’t want to wait and maybe pass on a perfect Polaroid opportunity!
But I soon learned to snap pictures with a Polaroid camera is different than with a normal camera. Because of the harsh sunlight, the images got a little vintage faded look.
It turned out that bright vibrant subjects worked really well. Not too much detail and not too close up. I experimented a bit, my first snap was a very quirky gloomy street but once the picture got developed it was quite a boring picture in the end.
Time to spice things up with more vibrant colors!
What got me most excited about photography with a Polaroid camera, was the anticipation of the development.
You had to wait 20 to 30 minutes to fully develop the image. All this time, it had to stay in a compartment without taking a sneak peek.
Because we only had 8 images, we really had to look for interesting compositions and to see if the frame would fit the look of the Polaroid.
In the end, I was happy with my 8 images but I think I need more practice so I might join another tour if I can.
Instant Tours also runs other Polaroid Photography tours in different cities in Austria, the rest of Europe, Hongkong, the United States, and South America. I can warmly recommend them, so feel free to check out one of their tours.
Looking to start photography with a Polaroid camera yourself, but won’t be traveling to Vienna or any of the above-mentioned cities? No worries, start with your own Polaroid Photo camera and start snapping pictures immediately!
Urban Polaroid Photo Tour
The great thing about the tour that I joined was that it was more a tour of urban Vienna.
No famous landmarks of Vienna, but more the rough urban undiscovered parts of the city. And this works really well for Polaroid photography!
We walked around a part of town, covered in murals and graffiti. We went to an artsy working space and a communal garden.
When do you even find these places on your own?! At the end of the tour, we took the subway and walked past the canal. Graffiti, murals, and street arts were waiting for us to snap our last pictures.
Do you still have that old Polaroid camera in the addict? Have you used it recently? Are you going to Vienna and looking for an artistic and fun activity to do? Why not consider a Polaroid Photo Tour in Vienna! Let me know if you did one of these tours, I’d love to hear from you
Brilliant idea for a post ! I like the old school look of a polaroid photo and I love the idea of turning Polaroids into postcards ! Vienna is beautiful and still one of the top cities to visit on my bucket list !
What a cool tour! I want to do one! Of course, I can remember my parents and my grandma using Polaroid pictures. It was always fun to watch them begin to develop.
Brilliant idea for a post ! I like the old school look of a polaroid photo and I love the idea of turning Polaroids into postcards ! Vienna is beautiful and still one of the top cities to visit on my bucket list 🙂