Production of the iconic Polaroid Instant camera--point, shoot and shake--has already ceased over the past couple years, but now Polaroid has announced it will no longer make instant film either:
The company, which stopped making instant cameras for consumers a year ago and for commercial use a year before that, said today that as soon as it had enough instant film manufactured to last it through 2009, it would stop making that, too. Three plants that make large-format instant film will close by the end of the quarter, and two that make consumer film packets will be shut by the end of the year, Bloomberg News reports.
Watch this develop below...
OK, in truth I can't say I'll truly miss Polaroids. The quality was mediocre, the image deteriorates rather rapidly over time, the reproducibility was problematic, and that little package of plastic and chemicals is not particularly ecological either.
Still, as someone who grew up in the 1960s, there is a strong element of nostalgia around the Polaroid camera. It was magical, back then, to watch that little square shoot out of the front of the camera, to give it some vigorous shakes and to watch the image slowly materialize, black to grey to sepia to full color over the next sixty seconds.
It provided a sense of immediate technological gratification that was really rather amazing back then, before digital photos and digital access to the world. At holidays, birthday parties, track meets and other family events, you could click and then everyone could gather around just one minute later to ooh and ahh over the captured moment!
The Polaroid opened up new sociological phenomena. Travelers took the cameras on Third World trips so they could give photographic gifts to families in the impoverished villages they visited, perhaps the only images these families would have of themselves or their children. For the first time, average couples were titillated to have a way in which they could star in their own erotic images without having to worry about getting the photos developed.
Polaroids were a staple of crime scene documentation. Numerous artists and photographers made use of the camera in their work. As recently as last year, thousands of Polaroids were taken as souvenirs at Harry Potter 7 parties at Barnes & Noble bookstores around the US.
So, it's the end of an era. A kitschy, low-quality era perhaps, but nevertheless one that is strongly nostalgic for many, that artists embraced in various unique ways, that helped people bond around the images of their lives, that provided poor people around the world with treasured photos, and that in its small way contributed to the sexual revolution.
For the few remaining instant camera aficionados, Fuji evidently still makes the film, and Polaroid is hoping to license its technology to some boutique producer.
How about you? Any fond memories of Polaroid pictures you care to share?