This is absolutely the last thing I should be doing. I’m already behind. And despite there not being many rules, I’m probably going to break them straight away. Yep, there’s no exif data so I could fib. But I won’t.

Besides, week one involves a film finished on the 1st January. Okay, when it’s a ‘polaroid’ then yes, it’s a bit of a cheat, but for starters that’s just how I’m going to have to handle it! Next week I will be good. Or good-er. I have cameras with film left in them that will need to be cleared so you might see this cheatery – film finished that week – come into play again. Bear with me. One of them is my grandad’s camera that I’ve reserved for photos of the family so there’s no rushing that…

Anyway, I want to share this first off. It’s not what I normally do, and it’s not going to get artistic types stroking their chins and going “ahhh” or technical folk admiring my techniques. Far from it. I am even a bit ashamed.

What I want to try to express here is the sheer pleasure we all got from this basically unnessary, too expensive medium. The whole family loved the process, and I loved seeing them take part in the pictures – posing, waiting for them to develop, stashing them away whilst I got on with other stuff, looking at the results. I watched a friend smile as he looked through them. Yes, he could have been being polite (or it could have been the wine) but I hope he felt a little bit of the joy I feel as I sift through them, taking pleasure in being able to hold the little rectangles of film, the unusual tangibleness of them being THERE in their handily designed holdable ‘pouches’, rather than being beamed from a screen.

So, here we are, clowning around having festive fun, hanging out in Matlock for the Boxing Day raft race and taking New Year pics. Any further introduction can wait for now…

Okay, there’s some technical stuff. The camera is a Fuji Instax Mini 90 Neo Classic. The black one. Most shots were taken indoors with the red eye reduction turned on. And the cheapest film can be found on eBay. Buy in bulk!

Two shots were taken by my son. The ones with me in them. That’s quite enough information, I think!