Smile! Polaroid is saved A businessman plans to rescue the abandoned format for the sake of art. Emily Dugan reports Sunday, 18 January 2009
Fora generation, the Polaroid camera gave near-instant pleasure tomillions of users around the world, chronicling everything from birthsand weddings to the downright explicit. But when digital photographycame along in the 1990s – with instant images and the ability to editand delete pictures before they see the light of day – Polaroid wasdoomed, its iconic white-framed snaps apparently defunct.
WhenPolaroid announced last February that it would stop production of itsinstant film, it seemed the much-loved camera was gone forever. Butwithin weeks, a group of users had started a global campaign for theformat to return. And now, thanks to an unlikely saviour, their pleashave been heard.
If all goes to plan, the Polaroid factory inEnschede, Amsterdam, will soon be making film again thanks to its newowner, an eccentric Austrian artist and businessman named Florian Kaps.Mr Kaps, 39, has dedicated the past five years to instant photography.He set up Polanoid.net, the biggest Polaroid gallery on the web, and the first ever Polaroid-only art gallery in Vienna, called Polanoir.
Nowhe plans to save the film. "The project is more than a business plan;it's a fight against the idea that everything has to die when itdoesn't create turnover," said Mr Kaps.
Dubbed "The ImpossibleProject", the development of new film for Polaroid cameras launchestoday. Working with the Manchester-based black and white photographycompany Ilford, the machinery is in place to produce film of twoexposure types, each compatible with both the classic SX-70 cameraspopular with artists and the more modern 600 series.
Work hasbegun on a prototype. By hiring 11 of the original Polaroid team fromthe factory floor, Mr Kaps aims to mass produce both colour and blackand white film under the Impossible label by December, coinciding withthe projected date that existing stocks will run out.
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