The day that Polaroid announced they would no longer manufacture instant film, I was engaged in conversation by someone who wanted to know my opinion. As I’ve used Polaroid film for several projects, they thought I’d be devastated by the news.
At the time, my reply was “No.” I try to keep a level head when it comes to nostalgia and photography (despite so much of the medium’s power being predicated on memories), and I’ve long held that photography is more about the idea than the object.
The spectre of artists not being able to create “their art” anymore was raised, and I reacted strongly – images were what mattered most, not how they were made. To have based the core of your art-making on a failing company and a fading product was foolhardy. We all knew Polaroid was going to wither, and now it’s D.O.D. had been set. It was time to move on. No use mourning the inevitable.
Well, I’m starting to melt a little.
It’s getting harder and harder to find Polaroid film here in Amsterdam, and the few places that do have it (mainly specialty camera shops) are asking over €20 (that’s nearly $30 in lousy American money) per pack! That’s $3 per shot! I was dizzy when it was $1 per Polaroid. A 3x price increase is a lot to ask.
But I want it. I want to shoot Polaroids for a long, long time. I am not ready for it to leave.
You see, in a fantasy world, we’d all get free Polaroid film forever. But somehow, we were lucky enough to have been put in this world, where you could buy a pack of ten little miracles for a not-absurd amount of money. Now with supply short and the price high, I’m beginning to feel the void in my heart.
The mourning wasn’t simply sadness about the inevitable, it was sadness about the actual end. It wasn’t about the moment you realize you’ll never take another Polaroid, but the time when you realize you can’t take another Polaroid.
And that’s really, really soon.
