Hey photo friends, Erik here with my quick 2 cents on a new product that has sparked some debate here in the CJ Studio. The Impossible Project has a Kickstarter campaign for their new “Impossible Instant Lab”, which will “transform your digital iPhone images into real instant photographs that you can touch, caress and share with friends.” Take a look at the Kickstarter video for all the details:
I should love this thing. I mean, it combines Polaroids with iPhone Photography with Kickstarter! What’s more hip and awesome than that? The charm wears off for me quickly though when I realize that all of this is just taking pictures of pictures. Is there any artistic merit here? I respect the tangible nature of instant analog photography, but more than that I respect the difficulty, unpredictability, and commitment it takes to do it well. In my opinion, all of that is lost when you’re using an instant camera more or less as a printer that connects to your iPhone. We LOVE our iphone dearly, but this gadget isn’t about that. Does an analogue printer of digital undermine instant analogue photography?
What do you think? Like I said, I should love this thing, but I don’t know
I’ just wrote about these things on my site…it’s a really funny world we live in, people trying to deliberately destroy their 8MP images for the sake of some nostalgia/retro fascination they weren’t even a part of. The entire world was built upon people who tried to progress, do something different, better. The common folks would just play within the bounds of their time. Now this whole retrogasm of past 5 years, I guess the mid-life crises of all the 80s babies is actually trying to bring us back in a way. Back to cruddy lomo photos nobody actually cares about, back to grain, and now back to faux print. Let’s all go backwards.
I find it literally amazing. And please don’t try to convince me with none of that “um, what, mobile photography is a great creative tool, if used properly” stuff. No it isn’t. A quick go-cart is just a quick go-cart, no matter how you slice it. It will never be a Formula 1 race car, no matter how many flannel shirts with black frames you put on while debating that it will.
Can’t say I totally agree, but awesome rant anyway!
It’s a print process now. Artists outside of photography will be happy.
I’m an instant photography junkie. I own several cameras on several formats and to be homes this seems a very very bad idea. The beauty of analog photography is list when you are taking digital pictures, manipulate them in the phone and then take a picture of the screen. If I wante to do that I’d buy a Pogo printer. I’d rather buy another sx-70 or more film rather than invest in this silly proposition that just does not cut it from my point of view. Very lackluster it be awsome if this were a camera or better yet a film back.
Kinda seems like a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist, or a process only for its own sake.
It’s not like you can’t get prints from your iPhone photos in about a million ways already. Not to mention that half of the iPhone photo apps are about making your photos look like Polaroids to start with.
Maybe then you could shoot the print with your iPhone, make a print of that, re-shoot that, etc. etc. So then the question is, how many times do you have to circle around before you have something you can sell for $30,000 in a gallery?
In my opinion you’re right.
Looks like an overcomplicated printer to me.