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
In Australia the price of the film makes this a ridiculous proposition – $35 a pack!
I’ve become a big fan of Polaroid recently and have began slowly integrating them into my professional work. My clients LOVE them because they’re different. But it’s the whole Polaroid coming out of a quirky camera thing they love. This printers certainly an interesting concept. I’d love to have a play with it. However at the end of the day I’d rather drop the money on an SX-70 or invest in film. Polaroid cameras for Polaroids. iPhone for instant digital sharing of snapshots.
All that being said, do I think it’s $150 neat? Ehh probably not.
I kinda dig it BECAUSE it’s essentially a Polaroid printer. I think most of us today are guilty of taking photos and then never printing them. Having the option to turn photos into Polaroids is a fun way to free some of those photos from the digital world and make them something tangable (and also cool). Sure you can just have your photos printed at a lab, but Polaroids are just cool, and there’s something about iPhone photos as Polaroids that just seems right to me.
good stuff