Y’all are well aware of my relationship and long-time love affair with Polaroid. Well, back when the film went out of manufacturing, a now-friend of mine Dr. Florian Kaps took on a project that some called impossible–the resurrection of the old-style instant films. He bought up the last Polaroid film factory in the Netherlands and has succeeded in bringing back instant film from a near death.
This video–looks to be a TV short or something…dry at the start but picks up steam–is a cool way of seeing how this rather complicate stuff is made. Geeky cool, that is. I plan on taking a tour of the factory this summer.
Named after his doubters, The Impossible Project, now makes all sorts of color and B&W films, available at your local pro camera store or direct from their site here. I shoot a ton of this stuff. Try em all, but def check out the black-bordered B&W UV+ stuff that I reference in this video. It’s cool shiz – there’s a quickly scanned frame of mine after the jump.
Snagged this shot of the...ahem...photo booth in the lobby of the ACE Hotel NYC.
(via boingboing)
Will there also be something a Dutchie like myself could sign up for, somewhere around your visit to the factory? Something to enhance my skills involving you in some way 🙂
Do Polaroid actually made instant film now? I thought they’d stopped and a 3rd party company started producing it?
@Mark: The Impossible Project IS that third party…. Plus, Fuji also continues to make a wide variety of instant films.
How It’s Made is a fantastic show! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_It%27s_Made It’s produced in Canada, and they’ve covered some really interesting things like wagon wheels, hockey sticks, and bubblegum.
It covers usually 2-3 things per episode – hence the snippet feel of the Polaroid section linked above.
Wonderful for everyone who loves ripping stuff apart just to see how it works (but perhaps can’t always get it back together).
@ryan – the out of date film is really expensive, so the Impossibe Project is a better bet for costs. But I realize and agree that neither are cheap. Reminder fwiw, that there are 8 frames in the IP packs…
Love it, just wish I could afford it…
Love the black frame Polaroid!
The black frame UV+ is def my latest fav…