Polaroid is dead, long live Polaroid
A rather morbid way to start this whole celebration of Instant Photography. Polaroid week and I are a bit hit and miss. And yet I’ve managed to join in on it several times. But this year I thought that it would be at an end for me. See, I had ditched all my instant photography gear between the end of last year’s Polaroid Week and the early spring of this year. And as the quote says, I tried to get out, but they just pulled me back in.
I guess you can say at the last recording session for the 2017 season of Classic Camera Revival; co-host James Lee had a Polaroid Spectra with the latest batch of Impossible Project Black & White film. Well, that was that I had to get back in after seeing the quality of the newest batch. And I had just received as a gift, a Polaroid One from a friend, Marcia Cook. What made the Polaroid One different from all other 600-Type Polaroids is that it had a manufacture date of 2001, one of the last cameras to be produced by Polaroid.
It’s always a gamble with Polaroid Cameras, but I invested in a couple of packs of film, and bam, it worked. Beautifully! The black & white film, stunning, and the colour stock held that typical charm I had come to expect from instant film. And then the big news hit, and man, what news! The Impossible Project was no more; they were now Polaroid Originals. Yes, the original is back!
Polaroid has always been attached to “Instant” photography at least more me. I’m sure more people these days attach it to Fuji Instax. I went on a hunt, eventually getting some film packs from Henry’s in Oakville and Hamilton and then I saved them up for Polaroid Week. And all I can say is I’m impressed the colour is spot on, gone is the faded yellow I had come to expect from Impossible. And then there’s the black & white, I already am impressed with the stock, and under the new name, it’s even better! Which I never thought possible. Of course, this might all be a placebo effect, even if it is, I’m good with it.
For us in Canada, the price remains at thirty dollars a pack for eight shots so not exactly something I’ll be shooting on a regular basis. However, for something special, I think it’ll be worth the money.