Just 29,630,127 seconds to go…. except this is a countdown clock that I can really get behind!. Introducing The Impossible Project. this is something that i will be watching very closely for the next year. It would seem that some people have decided to try and pick up where polaroid left off!!

“We aim to re-start production of analog for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010. We have acquired Polaroid’s old equipment, factory and seek your support.”

“Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras…. Impossible b.v. has acquired the complete film production equipment in Enschede (NL) from Polaroid, has signed a 10-year lease agreement on the factory building; and has engaged the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide.”

WOW THIS IS AWESOME!!!
This is looking to be what I falsely hoped polapremium was going to be, instead of the one off/old stock, money grab that unsaleable slapped out there. The Impossible folks are upfront about what they are doing and if i dare say they look as though they are the answer to keeping integral (IE type 600) polaroid in our lives for the long term.  Go check out the site… send them feedback…give em shout outs on your blogs….lets make sure that these folks can at least make a run of it.

I know i just posted, but this started as a reply comment on this post, but it turned into a long rant So I figured it should be its own post.

I thought long and hard about Polapremium this morning and I ended up even more disappointed. I was looking for long term and I instead affronted with just how temporary it all is. I have a rule, if it costs more then $3.00 a shot I need to be making good money at it, or it better knock my socks off in some other way. Most things that I would buy from Polapremium unfortunately doesn’t meet that code. I don’t mind spending extra to support people/businesses doing cool things, but I think I will take all the money that I could have spent at polapremium and use it to buy more of Fuji’s instant stock on a long term regular basis. My feeling is, lets support the long term guy, the guy who is going to be around for a while. I am going to stick with my normally attractive and funny long term girlfriend, instead of dumping her for a fleeting romance with a super model with a coke habit that will last an intense week, but be left in the end with nothing but heartbreak and regret.

My Omega 4×5, the 360 Land camera, and I will happily shoot our Fuji FP100C with fantastic results and well into the foreseeable future.

The wait is over. After a few moments that turned into a long forever for us crazy few that were watching the some what inaccurate clock (Not Gastown steam clock inaccurate but inaccurate non the less) for the last week, here we are in the new land of Polapremium and what does that mean? Well as near as I can quickly determine it means that we are able to shoot a variety of films for a few more months anyway. My first impression is that of slight disappointment.  It almost looks a lot like a last big money grab by polaroid, but I do have to say that depending on how much room is on my visa right now, I may need a larger film fridge! :)  There is a huge variety of films but they all look like they are limited run or already close to being expired. They are also selling cameras as well which is cool but all said and done I want a do over on the last week to get my precious time back.   Call me optimistically disappointed.

just another 8200 seconds!!!!

Now because I obviously have heaps of time and absolutely no work to do I figured I would poke around and see what the rumor mill has to say about this whole polapremium business. What I have to say is that people initially seem to be about as skeptical as I am at first.  That is not to say that there aren’t a few metric tonnes of hope floating about out there.  Near as I can decipher from random rumors, and peeps in the know dropping hints, is that Polaroid and Unsaleable.com have teamed up to release a last run of instant films.  Rumor is saying that a release of a type 600 and possibly a replacement film for the SX70′s (that is not to say that they are releasing time zero again, my guess would be that they are releasing a type 600 that either has a built in ND filter or is a slower film closer to time zero’s ISO 150). It does seem however that the focus is going to be on the continuation of the integral films (non peel apart films) with little to no mention of pack films.

The British Journal of Photography recently published that Unsaleable.com (who is indirectly the registered owner of polapremium.com btw) was able to convince Polaroid to “produce an outstanding amount of breathtaking film, before closing down their factories”  “Many of these films are completely new products, never produced before” – spokesperson for polapremium.com

This is all super awesome except I am concerned that this is going to be nothing more then a short term run of Polaroid films that will quickly run out and within a year we will be left where we are right now. I also worry that the price is going to be an unbelievable ridiculous and arbitrary amount that would also make the long-term use of these films impractical for most, which is not unlike unsaleable to do.

What I hope to see is a return of square film formats like the type 87 or 84 because all my pack film cameras (with the exception of my land camera of course) shoot square leaving a black edge on the photo.  I would like the Polaroid to be the finished product but that stupid black edge is so ugly.  It gets to the point that I don’t shoot Polaroid with my Mamiya or Holga anymore (other than for the very few precious remaining boxes of type 84/87 I have left in my fridge).

One other possible bit of good news, that I am hoping is true, is that Polaroid may have licensed out production of type 664 and 667 films to Fuji.  The 664 I don’t really care about but in my humble opinion the 667 is a far superior Black & White then the Fuji FP 3000B.  In fact the 667 is the only medium format Polaroid brand pack film that I am sad to see go. I would also love to see the large format 8X10 etc.. come back but here I know that I am dreaming! :)

In my humble opinion what Polaroid should have done is stopped shipping date sensitive product to every Wal-Mart, London Drugs, and small town photo store in the world, and instead moved to an entire mail/internet ordering system.  Condensed the entire instant film section of the company down to their two remaining factories and have two shipping departments and a kick ass website/online presence.  Instead of having a large bloated company with sales offices all over the bloody world doing god knows what, streamline the whole thing down to the bear necessities.  It is not like the bulk of us die-hard Polaroid users haven’t been internet ordering our precious film for the last couple of years as it is.  I don’t claim to know how it all works but I will be shooting film/Polaroid till it becomes too expensive to do so. The dificulty is I am super cheap, and this sorta work makes me absolutely no money, so I fear that day is too quickly approaching.

The new home of instant photography

Thanks Justin for the heads up on this. I am not really sure what this is all about but I expect that someone managed to finagle around Polaroid’s patent on type 600 / Time Zero films and will then sell them at some exorbitant price via a website. Perhaps the Polaroid equivalent of Lomography‘s specialty films (IE: redscale) or Unsaleable.com blended Time Zero Films that sold for nearly 30bux for a 10 pack, or the expired type 600 that is currently around $26.00 Cdn. We can be hopeful but until I see it for real I doubt that there is much to be hopeful for :) I guess in 600,000 seconds we will know.

UPDATE: Nov.27.2008 IE: post launch -

Ok go here and read my post launch updates but in a nutshell I am super disappointed. :(