For most, the start of the new year signaled a fresh beginning, but for Polaroid film it marked the end of an era. Last year Polaroid announced that it would stop making instant film, and it should be phased out of stores by 2009. To many people in this digital age, Polaroids are no more than ancient relics, but to those in fashion, art and photography industries they are very much alive.
"It is going to be bad for art to not have Polaroid," said Thomas W. Southall,
curator of photography at the Harn Museum of Art. "The aesthetic of the Polaroid has proved to be irreplaceable. Digital has the same instant gratification, but it's pixilated."
Many famous artists have used instant film over the years, including Andy Warhol and Ansel Adams. Adams became a consultant for instant film's creator Edwin H. Land in 1948. He helped test the product, and over 35 years took hundreds of instant photographs. Adams wrote thousands of letters about his findings that helped Polaroid develop.
Warhol took hundreds of Polaroids of celebrities and anonymous subjects and then transferred the images onto silk screens. The more Warhol used instant film, the more he began to like the effects of Polaroids on their own.
"Polaroid has very fine grained, weird beauty," Southall said. "Each one of those snap shots is unique."
Many artists chose Polaroids because the images could not be reproduced, which is something that cannot be said about digital prints, Southall said. Each Polaroid is as distinctive as a drawing.
"The fact that the picture in your hand is the object that was exposed to the light, that is unique in its history and existence," said Douglas Whitaker, president of the UF Photography Club.
Many amateur photographers have fallen in love with instant film as well.
"I take Polaroids to capture moments," said Susan Jane Phelan, who has been using different types of Polaroid cameras since 2000. "Each photo I have reminds me of a certain time in my life."
In the fashion industry, Polaroids served practical purposes. At fashion shows they were used backstage to keep track of looks before models hit the runway. Many modeling agencies liked to take Polaroids to get instant feedback of how a model photographs.
Polaroid's announcement came as big shock to many.
"People were totally freaking out," said Jillianne Pierce, who interned at Marie Claire magazine last summer and used Polaroids to catalog clothing samples that came into the fashion closet.
"The fashion industry does not like change," she said. "Change in the clothes is enough."
Now the closets of agents, casting directors and designers are filled with just as many boxes of stockpiled Polaroid film as Prada shoe boxes.
There are those who refuse to just watch instant film expire quietly. One group, the Impossible Project, acquired Polaroid's film production equipment in Enschede, Netherlands. They do not plan to recreate Polaroid film, but instead develop a new type of instant film by 2010, according to the Impossible b.v. Web site.
"There are glimmers of hope," said Whitaker. "I hope one of these projects comes to fruition."
Fuji will still be producing instant film but as of now it will not fit into traditional Polaroid cameras, only wider format Fuji cameras.
Polaroid has also introduced a new type of digital camera, the Pogo, which they are advertising as a replacement for instant film cameras.
"Those cameras serve a purpose, but I personally don't think they are indicative of a coming revolution in photography," said Whitaker.
Whitaker said digital cannot replicate the anticipation built when waiting for a Polaroid to develop.
As stockpiles of instant film dwindle, each picture becomes more precious for Polaroid enthusiasts. For now all they can do is wait for new developments. In the meantime, they can celebrate 60 years of rich instant-film history in the only style appropriate-by shaking it like a Polaroid picture.
