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Even in the age of the iPhone, the Instagram generation is lining up in Central Park to have a picture of themselves taken — with a Polaroid camera.
Sophia Baui is one of them. While the 19-year-old may have been born long after instant film cams were retired and replaced by digital, she’s enamored by vintage-looking film prints.
The Australian tourist flew from Sydney to Manhattan to get a taste of the Big Apple and a must-see on her TikTok-compiled itinerary was paying a visit to Brian Fass, the internet-famous Polaroid photographer stationed in Central Park.
“It’s just so authentic,” Baui told The Post of square print-outs. “Looking back on memories, it’s a genuine trinket of something that was in the moment from that time.”
She added: “My kids are gonna look back on that and that’s me in New York.”
That’s part of the allure for the digitally savvy generation, who rarely have physical, printed images now that smartphones can catalog thousands of images on a pocket-sized device. And just like vinyl records, tapes and other vintage tech, 20-somethings are clamoring for the tangible 3-by-3-inch pop culture phenomenon from the 1970s.
“It’s nice to have a picture, a physical picture, rather than something on your phone,” 23-year-old James Smithson, who was visiting New York City from the UK with Brooke Candlish, 24, told The Post, calling it an “old fashioned thing.”
“There’s nothing else like it around,” Candlish chimed in, calling Fass “a real-life photo booth.”
Fass, 56, has been stationed at the Mall in Central Park for a decade, but has recently garnered online acclaim thanks to Gen Z fans who rave about the $20 photo-op on TikTok.
“That’s the only reason we really came here to Central Park,” Candlish, who discovered Fass through TikTok, told The Post while standing on the promenade on a particularly frigid Sunday morning.
Over the past year, business has boomed for the native New Yorker, lovingly nicknamed the “Central Park Polaroid Guy,” and often attracts long lines and even the occasional celebrity — Pierce Brosnan once handed over an Andrew Jackson for a close-up.
In fact, just last month, he set a personal record for the number of instant images snapped in a single day: 220.
To date, he estimates he’s snapped anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 Polaroid pictures in the park, where he sets up shop four days a week. While foot traffic varies depending on weather and time of day, the part-time gig is still his “main moneymaker.”
“It’s nice to know that people are embracing physical pictures,” Fass, who declined to disclose his yearly earnings, told The Post.
“I’m giving people instant memories and they have a physical picture that they can hold.”
Ten years ago, when he charged just $5 for a shot, he was using his instant portrait business as a way to market his park photography. However, the Upper East Side native, who grew up just one block from Central Park, said that “the Polaroids took off and no one noticed my photography.”
In his tenure capturing fleeting moments on film, Fass has been witness to anniversary celebrations and even proposals. Some loyal patrons return year after year as an annual tradition.
Georgia couple Bella Katzmark, 22, and Caleb Alderman, 23, have posed for a photograph two years in a row on the same exact date — their anniversary.
“Last year, when we were walking through the park, I was like, ‘I’ve seen the Polaroid guy, let’s go see him,’” Katzmark told The Post. “It hangs up on my fridge now.”
“We’re gonna add this one to our collection,” Alderman added.
Meanwhile, local Danielle Carolan calls it “picture day” — she and her boyfriend, Ryan, now boast a collection of Polaroids from Fass.
“Now we’re at senior year,” the content creator joked to The Post about her four-photo series.
Carolan feels that the couple has countless shots together, but having those physical photos “is really, really special.”
“It just feels like, in a world of Instagram and TikTok and all these online platforms, I don’t really have many printed-out photos of him and I,” she explained. “I think this just kind of gives it this wholesome feel that we don’t get a lot.”
While it may seem ironic that a generation with a camera in their back pockets is clamoring for an old-school photograph, Fass rejoices that young people are rediscovering the novelty of immediate film.
“I’m grateful that they found it, that it’s coming back,” he said.
