Back to the future

Back in 2008, to the dismay of many a lover of quirky photography, Polaroid discontinued it's instant film (having already discontinued its cameras). Digital had taken over, but Polaroid's own subsequent entrance into the digital - a portable and therefore "instant" printer for digital photos, the PoGo - wasn't a great success. For me, the idea seemed attractive, but the print-size was too big for the familiar (here in Japan) purikura - print club - use, but too small for most other uses. To say nothing of carting an additional printer around.

Meanwhile, Wired reported in January that a new-cum-retro Polaroid film camera will be back on the market this year. Complete with film. And this month, Wired again reports on Polaroid and the instant film developed by the Impossible Project, a group of Polaroid lovers intent on reintroducing instant film - before Polaroid opted to come back with both camera and filmitself. This month sees the Impossible Project's monochrome film released and this year it promises a colour one. It seems the company will also work with the relaunched Polaroid.

I used to be a photographer (professionally) but in becoming primarily a designer I haven't kept many of the old cameras. The picture at the top of this posting was one of my favourite portraits taken for The Wire magazine, using torchlight in a completely darkened hotel room as lighting, a large Polaroid camera - which I sadly didn't keep - and Polaroid's instant negative film for immediate checking of the exposure. Not only was the negative quality good (and idosyncratic) but you could combine the "best" of both worlds - instant results which could later be printed in the then-traditional way. (Each picture in this shoot, by the way, took a short time to light because I was "painting" with torchlight and each time was different and inexact, and then a short time to develop and check - so thanks to the musician Don Byron, the sitter, for his patience!)

I met a staff photographer on a UK paper once, who took a Polaroid along for his shoots of artists etc, asked them to take a picture with it and sign it, getting an instant artwork. I always have thought this seemed liked 1) a good idea and 2) a cheeky way of getting free art. (As for art, Warhol is the most famous user of the now-reintroduced film, of course.)

A Polaroid was also my first camera, given me when I was 12. It was a largish, non-folding black plastic thing, with a metal two-sided folder slipped into the back, which on colder days you could pull out, place the undeveloped film inside and put in your arm pit to warm it up. (This was the intended use of its design!) Of course on colder days the metal was chilly on the arm pit (let alone the film), but I never really thought twice about the strangeness. I only really took pictures of friends and family, but here's one I took on holiday in Venice. Perhaps it's the curiously atmospheric nature of the colour dies which have meant people have wanted Polaroid back.

It's unusual to see an actual return of an analogue product in this digital era especially after the company tried out a digital product. These days I only have a digital camera, which fulfils our reliance these days on instant checking. But maybe I'll be buying a new Polaroid...