When I was a kid Sharper Image was the coolest unaffordable store I had to drive at least 2 hours to visit. I was obsessed! When I saw the Sharper Image Instant Camera at Wallmart I had to buy it to celebrate ShittyCameraChallenge.

I took the Sharper Image Instant Camera on a road trip through southern New Hampshire because I don’t live there and it is really pretty with lots of history connected to Polaroid. I started at La Burdick in Walpole, NH where I enjoyed a Claratin, elegant coffee, and bought myself some rabbit terrine.

I got lost trying to find Ken Burns’ house but did manage to take a tragic photo of his beautiful backyard. The Sharper Image Instant Camera has a meter and exposure indicator near the lens. A small LED light will illuminate next to the appropriate setting showing you the correct exposure which you have to choose manually. Metering is important with this camera and I ruined my Ken Burns stalking moment by overexposing his backyard.

My next stop was supposed to be the elegant Madame Sherri forest but after almost getting stuck in mud five times I decided to skip it and head to Dublin, NH.

There are more sites on the National Historic Register in Dublin, NH than the entire county where I live. It is the kind of place where the homes are so big and the driveways so imposing that you don’t need a gate or a sign telling you that you aren’t welcome. You just know.

I thought it would be a great place for drive-by shootings.

The Sharper Image Instant Camera has actual settings and you will get crappy results if you don’t pay attention to them. You can barely see the elegance of this home because the camera defaults to indoor mode when you turn it on and I stopped in front of this house just long enough to feel poor and snap a photo. I didn’t pay attention to the settings which is why the photo is massively overexposed. I should have adjusted the exposure for the brightness of the sun and overall classiness of the structure.

My next stop was a town in New Hampshire famous for being the place where artists go to made super awesome art and eat really good burgers. The town also features blight-resistant chestnut trees which are extremely elegant. I was there to drive by Edwin Land’s summer home.

Polaroid inventor Edwin Land spent many summers in Peterborough where he and his wife donated land to the town to help conserve an even larger piece of land. Robust. It is hard to find the exact location of his house but I took this photo in the general area of the piece of land he donated. It is pretty and was a great location to end my road trip.

For looking like a toy it really isn’t a great point and shoot because it is too easy to ruin an exposure. For this photo, I paid attention to the meter on the Sharper Image Instant Camera to properly expose the image so that the foreground and background is visible. Luckily, the neighbor’s mansion was far enough way that I could stop long enough in my car to properly document this landscape before the extreme feeling of poverty overtook me.

Things To Know

The Sharper Image Instant Camera is basically an Instax Mini 8 that sells for a lot less money. It is also a lot crappier. If you can find one for under $50 I would recommend purchasing one because you will really enjoy shooting with it.

It’s like the finest Corinthian plastic.

— Mark 🤙 (@3eyedmonster) March 3, 2019

Walpole, NH is super elegant and has triumphant chocolate, and coffee.

Dublin, NH is full of gorgeous shingle style mansions, home to Yankee Magazine, and was once full of artists. Also, a woman remodeled one of the mansions into a net zero energy home because she ran out of space in her castle for her sculpture.

Peterborough, NH is home to the MacDowell Colony, and has inspired many great works of art including but not limited to; Our Town, Appalachian Spring, The Corrections, and the Grey Gardens musical. The Sheiling Forest contains some of the few examples of blight-resistant American Chestnut trees.