Polaroid lovers rejoice. You can stop packing the salad crisper with boxes of sickeningly expensive eBay-purchased instant film because, as of this Thursday 25 March, the dream of analog Instant Photography will be kept alive – and available for international shipping at retail prices.
The new Instant Film is going on sale through the website for The Impossible Project – a group of freakishly clever engineers and instant film obsessives who set about reinventing the way the film was manufactured using new materials and processes. The Creative Director for Specialty Line of Polaroid Imaging Products, Lady Gaga, has not commented – nor has she done any Polaroid-associated appearances or comments since her role was first announced at the start of January. PS: totally shit effort.
The first film available from the newly developed range is designed for use in the 1970s model SX-70 cameras as well as more recent cameras that take 600-series instant film. They’ve only released monochromatic film packs that produce eight black-and-white images – and is suitably expensive at $21 (but significantly less than the 60 odd bucks that enterprising pricks were charging for a 20 shot film pack on eBay).
Later in the year colour film will be available too.
The production of Polaroid’s much loved instant film was stymied a couple of years ago after the company went bankrupt – to the dismay of a population of people too lazy for the lengthy process required for standard photographic film development, and vintage types with a vocal aversion to anything digital. Luckily the Impossible Project stepped in to save the day. At this point it would be appropriate to drop in the phrase “anything’s possible” but that would be a pretty gross cliche right?
There’s a fantastic home video made by the massive geeks from The Impossible Project introducing the first pack of the film. They are Dutch with awesome accents.
View it at their website: http://www.the-impossible-project.com/
