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Polaroid 8”x10” The Impossible Project August 27, 2012

Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Polaroid, The Impossible Project , comments closed

Retro is definitely in. History is back in fashion. Analogue film’s quality is an artist’s conceptual nirvana. The NY Times blog announces the return of 8″x10″ film thanks to The Impossible Project.

Image © Alan Marcheselli, courtesy of Impossible.

NYT LENS

In the world of photography, innovation has a shelf life. By 2008, some 60 years after Edwin Land’s invention of the Polaroid camera, analog photography had been usurped by the power of the digital age. The shuttering of instant film production left a community of Polaroid enthusiasts and professional photographers with uncertain futures: Would instant film ever be produced again? Could Polaroid be resurrected?

Four years after the end of that era, a passionate group of instant film fans — under the title of the Impossible Project — have worked hard to create another era. On Thursday, Impossible will take the next step toward reclaiming the photography of the analog age, exhibiting the first images of a new large-format line of instant film in the group’s New York City space. After more than four years, the world of photography will get their first look at the new 8-by-10.

Image © Chloe Aftel, courtesy of Impossible

While the 8-by-10 format was never Polaroid’s most popular consumer product, the film’s appeal for professional photographers had always been clear.

“Looking at an 8-by-10, you have so much information,” said Chloe Aftel, a photographer closely associated with the Impossible Project. “The film can handle changes in light better than digital and there is a pleasure, richness and density to the film.”

But in the rat race for financial success, beauty couldn’t compete with the appeal of digital — it was faster, cheaper, more convenient.

That is why Polaroid’s announcement in February 2008 should not have been surprising. The company’s laggard returns in analog sales were not sustainable — these were the consequence of a newer and faster, digital world. While Polaroid’s slacking profits stifled production of its camera line in 2007, the end of film production threatened the consumers they had already attracted. Their once-popular cameras would soon be obsolete.

“There was something so complete about it,” said Bill Phelps, remembering the magic of the SX-70 Polaroid camera. “It was the perfect camera and idea to fall in love with. It was this beautiful object, this accessible film. It provided immediate satisfaction.”

Conceived in the mind of Edwin Land, Polaroid’s founder, the instant camera and film had been available for nearly 60 years. While the modern photographer now expects to review an image in seconds, inventing a film that would develop in front of the photographer’s eyes was truly revolutionary. Mr. Land accomplished that in 1947.

As interest in the digital world of photography grew, however, Polaroid’s appeal waned. There were many photographers who still practiced with the form. Mr. Phelps and many of his contemporaries started their careers working with instant film. Large format was Mr. Phelps’s specialty. When Polaroid shuttered its factories, Mr. Phelps rushed to his nearest supplier, buying as much of the 8-by-10 film as his bank account could afford. For professionals left with a finite number of rolls, 8-by-10 film seemed to be nearing extinction.

That’s when the Impossible Project came along.

Started in 2008, the project was founded by Florian Kaps, André Bosman and Christian Lutz, after Mr. Kaps and Mr. Bosman resolved to stave off Polaroid’s extinction during an event to make the closing of Enschede’s Polaroid factory in July that same year. As Polaroid continued to close and demolish factories, the Impossible staff members worked feverishly to procure any decommissioned production equipment they could find. The goal was to secure enough of the basic materials to continue to produce film for the current and future generations.

Read More: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/reinventing-instant-film-in-an-age-of-instant-imagery/