A Day With The Silver Shade Tour

Over the weekend, The Impossible Project's Silver Shade Tour rolled through LA, setting up shop in the Freestyle Photo parking lot with more than their fair share of goodies to play with!

I popped over for the Friday demo right after an interview I filmed over in Hollywood.  I figured I'd stay an hour and chat a bit.  I ended up staying 4 hours. lol.  What can I say, I enjoyed talking with the two brothers behind the wheel of this tour, Mitch and Kyle. These two have some warm hearts, being absolutely welcoming while I picked their brains about the tour so far, how this mobile instant lab came to be, thoughts on the Gen 2.0 film, thoughts on the instant lab, emulsion lifting, and the usual geekery over film.

All of this was soundtracked to some awesome fiddling playing on the airstream sound system (yes, this airstream is tricked out).  Mitch mentioned he played the fiddle, which I think came up after we started to talk about an NPR segment on coal mining towns in Kentucky which was curated with music from these areas.

It was great watching these guys talk to strangers who would pull in and ask if they had heard about the Impossible Project before that day.  Most of the visitors said yes.  The ones who hadn't got the full run down - film, cameras, the instant lab.  Almost all of these latter folks said they had a Polaroid in a closet somewhere (Which speaks to the ubiquity of the Polaroid brand up until a decade ago.)  Some said they would come back with their cameras, others were given empty film packs to test their wares with.  All of them came away surprised that film was still available.

That's not surprising though.  I regularly tell people about the Impossible Project and their film because they are genuinely surprised to see me shooting with a Polaroid.  I'm often asked if Polaroid is still a company, who's making the film then, where can they get the film, how many photos are in each pack, and why do I still shoot instant film in light of the digital era we're surrounded by.

For the most part, Mitch and Kyle received the same questions.  When they had their hands full, I stepped in to answer questions, gave a history of the company, and showed off the cameras on display.  I figured I had throughly immersed myself in this company's culture to do so.  That and apparently I looked like I was part of the crew. lol.  I honestly was taken aback when someone would come up to me and ask me a question and addressing me as "part of the company."  That would be a dream job, but for now I'll settle for an Impossible Evangelist.  ;)

All in all, it was a fun afternoon!  Didn't win the raffle (drat) but I did come away talking to some rad guys and some photos to remember the day by.  Although they did mention a Seattle block party for one of their last demos....I think I'm overdue for a visit to Seattle anyway. haha.

And now for the rest of the photos from that day!