I'm not sure where to begin with this besides...besides designating it as a warning. About 6 months ago I purchased a Polaroid Landcamera along with some sx70 film from eBay. I know, I know, "really? eBay...?" Listen, it's not that important that eBay was involved, this is just how I found a guy to sell it to me cheap. Without poking him too much for more information about the camera and any damages it had received during its lifespan. He was diligent in response, admitting that he only knew it had belonged to a family friend who died of pneumonia last week. The guy had a massive collection of cameras and stereos, some briefcase record players that still played, and other photography and videography equipment. He had been left everything by the man and finally decided to clean things out and give the equipment to film or photography students or hobbyists to make some extra food money. Feeling satisfied with the brief information, I bought the camera for a fair $30, smiling over helping out a random person. Even if its just a small portion of what he needs.
In the meantime, I had to search out for cheap film that wouldn't leave me broke as a joke each and every time I have to replace a cartridge. When in doubt, leave it to overseas having the new stuff. And, I know you're thinking "Oh god, don't say you read creepy-" stories, yes. I'm pretty active when it comes to Reddit /let'snotmeet and /nosleep. I came across a paranormal board, talking about tech items being possessed by deceased proprietors. Seeing that the camera I bought was owned by a dead man, I decided to humor myself with some horror stories about classic cameras. One girl posted about how, no matter who takes her picture with her instax, her face alone is blurred out like it had been over exposed in a focused spot. She was given it from her cousin after he was handed it down from his dead sister who had died on impact during a violent and fiery crash collision. He didn't find anything about the camera interesting, and he felt that his sister would be more proud of him if he gave it to a loving owner.
I decided to try and find the crash, but it turns out a lot of fatal collisions occur where the OP lived. But I thought I got close. A young woman was thrown from her vehicle after colliding with a steel lamp post. She had slid across the tarmac on her belly, and her face. The skid left her with the skin of her face barely hanging on her chin, like she had worn a mask over her skull. The OP had already long since connected the dots after she did her own research. She says she just won't take photos of herself with it. Chills went down my spine and a laughed a bit panicked. "Woah...her whole face...that's what it took to possess the small Polaroid that survived the crash..." I shuddered again and put my laptop to sleep, deciding that mine was probably haunted in some way. What would a photographer do if he possessed his camera anyway? Take portraits? Landscapes? Waste my film? I was becoming a bit hopeful of the possible paranormal activity, wanting to have a way to prove it to my heckler of a dad. Ghosts aren't real, he tells me, just like God. While I can't really argue with the religious statement, I don't see paranormal activity as a religious connected topic. If anything, paranormal is like an overlapping plane.
For sake of understanding how I perceive these paranormal events and why I react as I do, I'm going to give a short example of why it's not a religious subject. There are multiple plains of existence, and all of them can overlap one another. Living plane, where all present living creatures exist. This is a solid plane, referred to as reality, where everything can be touched or physically interacted with. While an intercepting plane, Spiritual plane or Limbo, is a fluid plane where beings exist not as physical beings, but as electromagnetic radiation. This fluidity and flexibility is what allows for it to cross into our plane.And the electromagnetic radiation is how he are ability to witness events like poltergeist activity and hauntings. The people are only physically dead, every electric signal that passed through their nerves is now free energy floating through the electric field that exists everywhere. Which in turn, can lead to possessed electronics.
Now that all that's done, it's time to test if this thing can take photos.
I had to purchase a charge flash for my camera, being the cheapest and easiest to replace once all charges pop. Hooking it into the top and hooping the neck strap over my head, I grab a pop and head out back to take some test photos. I mainly used an old wilting oak as my focal point, trying out different positions to see how much light was good enough for a clean crisp picture. The first 5 prints were heavily exposed, the shutter speed being too slow. But the last 3 prints... I could see a gaunt, shadowed over figure behind the oak, about 20 feet from my yard. I looked at the same spot as in the photo, seeing nothing that would make the shape. Nor did I see anyone walking around.
I brushed it off as Polaroids can make almost anything look like a person if you shake while photographing, and I'm pretty guilty of uncontrollable shaking. The next pack of film arrived in time for me to take it house sitting with me. This is when the paranormal encouragement was heavily regretted. For a long time, my grandparents would tell us, myself and my brother, that they have heard footsteps walk from the back bedroom door all the way into the kitchen over the squeaky loose board. And that would be it for the night.
I happened to catch ear one night while staying there, of what I assumed could've been footsteps. Feeling brilliant I decided to snap two photos of the hallway, one then, and one again in an hour. I left them to fully develop on the kitchen counter and tucked myself into bed. Those photos...
I burned them, and I burned the camera. That face in the hallway was enough for me to know there was something wrong with that camera. In photos taken before by my grandparents, it appeared to look like their euthanized dog had been the footstepper and was showing he was still chilling nearby. But my photos. Stood a completely black figure, gaunt and lanky like a skeleton wrapped in nylons, with a pair of pinhole, white eyes, and a wide, ear-to-ear, toothy smile that could open his head in half across. I can't handle the thought of checking to see if it's still sitting in the fire pit...The shadow might be very furious with me if it isn't ashes...And I don't want to see that horrid face every again..I'd gladly be blinded, so long as that horrifying face stays gone.