Instant Film Lives On

For months on end now, I have devoted myself almost exclusively to instant film, in particular Impossible Project film.  It began with a simple tweet to Impossible's twitter page about what films they would recommend.  It snowballed when I picked up OneStep 600 at a weekend pop up shop they held in Hollywood.  Now, a year later,  I am 8 polaroid cameras deep (3 OneSteps, 1 Spectra SE, 2 SX-70s, 1 SLR 680, and a Land 360) with the the bottom of my fridge devoted to keeping film fresh.  I mull on how the photos I gaze throughout the day would look in polaroid (I yearn for an Impossible Instant Lab).  I see instant cameras in yesteryear films.  My friends automatically come to me when they want to know what Polaroid is living in their closet.  They also ask inquire as to why sold my 7D for a polaroid (I haven't, but that's how often I've carried an instant camera around).  That is the moment you realize you're a fanatic.

It is the digital era, where the megapixels are exploding in even the smallest smartphone and DSLRs are de facto.  To Photoshop is a verb and everyone wants their facebook profile shots retouched.  Digital looks standard across every device without wavering.  Instant gratification is a way of life on a digital screen.

Then, there is instant film.  It's instant enough.  A spare couple minutes with the Fuji Instax line, up to 30 minutes with some of the Impossible Project's older films.  Quicker than a trip to the drug store, slower than your phone.  It's not quite sharp, not quite how you remember the moment, irreplaceable if lost, pricy per each print, problematic when people are so used to having a copy of their photo shared on the spot.

Yet, it evokes nostalgia in us.  We dream of yesterday through the soft lens haze of our instant cameras.  It has an unmistakable look that no digital sensor can pack (isn't that true of all film though?).  The shutter snaps up our curiosity while we watch it develop, sifting to the surface a wonder I've never seen while working in photoshop.  You pause a heartbeat more before capturing a moment because you'll only get one shot to shoot.  There's only one copy in the world, which makes the recipient revel in that moment that much more (short of a quick slide of a scanner).

There is an whimsy that just doesn't exist in digital.  It is an indescribable flash that pulses in your eyes when a Polaroid is pointing at you and steals your soul in a slipping moment in time.

That curiosity drives you to delve into the lives of others enamored by instant film in a way only possible in today's instant internet age.  Thanks to Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, smartphones, an internet anywhere globe, I can galavant into the still lives and provoking portraits of other zealots thinking in the exact same way.  There is irony in an analogue world giving way to digital, only to open the doors to era remembered only in shoeboxes, closets, and yard sales.

I've ejected the film and don't see myself fading away from these fantastic photos anytime soon..

(Video from Line Magazine)