Happy Leap Day everyone Unfortunately, something that will not be returning in 4 years is Polaroid film It has only been a couple of weeks since the company announced they would no longer be making it I listened to another story about it today on NPR Not only is that huge Polaroid camera amazing, but I also found some of the comments interesting in the story.
“Dorfman says the “seduction” of the digital camera ” the ability to take picture after picture until snapping a good one ” does not mean it’s actually a better process.
“The person is more on if they know they only have a few shots,” she says.”
I think this highlights an important aspect in image making that maybe will get lost in the digital generation Slowing down Just because repeated pixels are ‘free’ – doesn’t mean we don’t owe the capture sufficient time for contemplation I don’t like that it is applied as a blanket statement towards digital, because it isn’t an equation, that one equals the other But I have certainly seen it myself, a shutter drive blasting away on a flash card with comments to the effect of ‘I am sure I’ll get one good one in there.’ Being methodical can apply to any medium, and the medium doesn’t have to mean. sloppiness.
“They’ll never know what it was like. If it is the end, it will be a truly gigantic shame for future generations,” he says.”
. This made me think about how I started with 35 mm film, and I have shot Polaroids, but I didn’t really know what it was like for something like photographic plates or daguerrotypes It certainly would have been interesting to me to have shot on different formats, but I don’t really know if I feel any loss from it.
Digital instant prints are coming soon as a replacement from Polaroid, but I doubt we will see anything like Elsa’s camera in digital form anytime soon Can you imagine a digital sensor the size of that huge polaroid camera?! I think there will continue to be demand for instant prints Many travel photographers rely on polaroids for handing out prints as gifts to their subjects in remote places For me, I always feel that an image isn’t in its final resting place until it has been printed It is nice to see that perhaps the end of one era will be replaced by simply a different one – the tradition isn’t lost in the change of medium.
