I always struggle with the photo thing.

It's fun to review old photos, so I enjoy taking lots of them. But anytime I put my camera between myself and whatever I'm photographing, it also feels like a removal of being in the present moment and just enjoying it for what it is.

This argument get brought up quite a lot, but rarely by someone sharing his own experience which is interesting.

I never really felt like this. Snapping a photo takes a few seconds and I can continue enjoying whatever I was doing, not that I'm not enjoying taking a photo :) To me it's just shrink-wrapping my mood.

I've actually noticed that I pay more attention to my surroundings when I want to take a photo - I think about what's actually engaging me, what I'm trying to record in a photo, notice the background environment, etc. Most of the time I end up not taking any photos because I know I won't capture what I want, but I like the increased mindfulness that thinking about it gives me.

I used to feel more as GP describes, but that's changed since I started carrying a DSLR every day - not that I don't still use my phone's camera, but I find there's a distinct and very palpable difference between taking quick snapshots as aides-memoires, and the much more mindful and absorbing state that, at least in my experience, is part and parcel of photography for its own sake.

I can do the former without removing myself from the moment, while I find the latter requires it - at least thus far, I haven't worked out a way to both remain present in an experience, and also engage in the kind of analytical thought and modeling that goes into producing photographs which are (or at least strive to be) worthy in their own right, whichever camera I happen to be using to do so.

I do miss the camera sometimes. :(

get a dedicated pocket cam

This is good advice - point-and-shoot cameras are really good these days! For $90 you can get one [1] that's the equal of any smartphone camera ever made, and the better of the vast majority - you might find a >16MP sensor on a smartphone, but you'll have a very hard time finding a smartphone with a 5x optical zoom capability. Spend a few hundred dollars more and you can get one [2] with an almost absurdly broad range of capabilities, including a 20-megapixel sensor and a 35x optical zoom capability that'll cover a broader range of use cases than any smartphone camera could ever hope to manage.

[1] http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/compact-di...

[2] http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/compact-di...

Polaroid also launched Snap:

http://www.polaroid.com/products/Z2300-instant-camera

I love the style and simplicity

I own this thing. From my experience it's pretty terrible. Inconsistent colors, horrible focus, open all the time if you throw it in your bag. Would not recommend.

Eh. Unless instant prints are a thing you really need, I'd tend to go with a discrete printer. You can get an inkjet capable of good quality on photo paper for pretty cheap these days, and there's got to be some tradeoffs in cramming an imaging system and a printer into a handheld form factor - for one thing, the sensor's only 10MP, and the prints are only three inches by two.

If I go with polaroid I go with polaroid, not a digified thingy: https://eu.impossible-project.com/collections/polaroid-600-c...

Though I have to agree it looks pretty cool.

Almost three bucks a pull? And I thought Velvia was an indulgence...