TAKING A SELFIE IN THE 80S
by Mark Nobes, chief editor
Back in the 80s, taking a selfie was a very different experience indeed, and without digital technology to help us, it required a certain amount of skill and patience - if you couldn't afford the luxury of a camera with a timer, then the task became almost impossible!

Nonetheless, this process still seemed miraculous to me, the fact that a photo would appear from your camera and develop before your eyes was an experience that many remember with greats fondness. Indeed, the popularity of instant cameras has seen an explosion in recent years.
A 35mm camera was a more cost effective option, and the quality of the photos was superior. A professional photographer certainly wouldn’t have been seen dead with a Polaroid. However, you had the hassle of loading and unloading your film, and then taking it somewhere to get it developed (a drug store in my local town), not knowing how your photos would turn out. More often than not, around a quarter of the photos would be out of focus, contain a close up of my aforementioned thumb, or not develop at all!
The only other option was to send your film in the post to one of the many mail order processors. Now this was risky, as you could never be 100% certain of whether you would ever receive your film back, or whether it would get damaged in the mail. It was an anxious wait to discover what your precious holiday snaps would turn out like.
So although taking a selfie in the 80s was a whole heap of hassle, the joy of actually holding and browsing through real photographs is something that has been lost.