Have you heard? Polaroid has decided to stop making film. THIS IS CRAZY. How can you just stop making an entire film medium? It’s like art stores deciding to stop making paint. It doesn’t even make sense.
The other day a friend and I went down to the pro camera store to buy some Polaroid film. We were planning on walking around and taking some photos. This is when we discovered that Polaroid has already decided to stop selling film in Canada. I didn’t realize it meant they would stop making the film period. There were ten packs of film left in the store and literally no more being shipped. I bought three of the last ten packs, used two, and saved the other. Now I wonder if I should even use it, I feel like there’s all this pressure. I have one of the few remaining packs of Polaroid 600 film left, that’s pretty important.
Also, sitting in my fridge as we speak is an unopened 100-pack of colour 4×5 Polaroid film. It’s pretty old at this point (expired January 2002) but sometimes that makes for cool results and people go looking for that sort of thing. Needless to say, I’m going to hold onto this for awhile.
You can go to the Polaroid website where they have a running tally of the remaining film left in stock. About a week ago it was in the thousands. I just checked today and there were 10 packs of 600 film left.
TOTAL INSANITY.
If you are as outraged as I am, check out www.savepolaroid.com. They have info on fighting to get Polaroid back. Importantly, they do not want to save the company Polaroid, but rather the film as an object itself. Check out their statement:
On February 8, 2008, Polaroid Corporation announced that it will discontinue production of all instant film. This site will document the aftermath of this announcement and will serve as a home-base for the effort to convince another company to begin producing the cherished technology that Polaroid has so carelessly abandoned.
This site is not about saving Polaroid, the company, rather the remarkable invention of Edwin Land, the instant film that made Polaroid a household name.
Sign the petitions! Write to the companies! Let them know you love Polaroid film and you don’t want it to disappear!
