+polaroid–end of a medium+
Published in Cookies & Cream Magazine, August 2009
In 2008, Polaroid announced that they would cease production of their last instant film format. This development caused some to have a renewed sense of nostalgia while others viewed it as the inevitable triumph of digital photography. A common refrain was that an end to instant film was irrelevant since it was possible to achieve any “look” with a digital photo and Photoshop. What these people failed to realize was that digital photography isn’t instant photography. Sure, it’s possible to look at the image on the camera’s screen right away but that isn’t a photograph. It’s only pixels. Pixels that will likely never be printed. Pixels that will never end up in a shoebox stuffed in the back of a closet waiting to be rediscovered. They might get posted to SpaceBook or MyFace or something but is that really where you expect your kids to find their childhood memories?
Photography in the digital age has made capturing an image so cheap that most people try to capture everything. How many tourists have you seen who only experience the sights through the 3 inch LCD on their cameras? Human memory has evolved to selectively record only the important bits, and even then, they age by fermenting the acidic parts into a sweet, hazy elixir. This is a Polaroid. Selective memories made tangible and real. Soft focus and a creamy palette to erase the unnecessary details and warm the moment until it smells like fresh-baked bread.
As a Polaroid integral print is born from the camera, two rollers squeeze the dyes from the pod at the bottom of the photo and literally paint the photo into existence. Each photo is absolutely unique. There is no negative with which one can make a duplicate. This singularity present in each Polaroid makes them special and valuable. These are memories that can be given away as soon as they are created. Memories that won’t disappear with the latest computer virus.
The saddest thing, to me, isn’t even that Polaroid stopped making film. It’s that so many people don’t even know what they are losing.
+©Grant Hamilton 2009+
