Critic’s Notebook - The Polaroid - Imperfect, Yet Magical - NYTimes.com
Critic’s Notebook - The Polaroid - Imperfect, Yet Magical - NYTimes.com: "The next few months will end an era that began six decades ago with a contraption called the Model 95 camera. That accordion-style machine delivered instant photography at a price tag equivalent to some $850 today. The SX-70, which spit out color prints, arrived in 1972. American life during the late 20th century had found its Boswell.
The demise of Polaroid’s instant film cameras has been coming for years. Digital technology did it in. The decision this year by the company that Edwin Land founded to stop manufacturing the film has left devotees who grew up with Polaroid’s palm-size white-bordered prints bereft. They have signed up in the thousands as members of SavePolaroid.com. Digital cameras that print instant pictures have materialized to fill the void, providing a practical substitute. But as in most affairs of the heart, logic is beside the point."
The demise of Polaroid’s instant film cameras has been coming for years. Digital technology did it in. The decision this year by the company that Edwin Land founded to stop manufacturing the film has left devotees who grew up with Polaroid’s palm-size white-bordered prints bereft. They have signed up in the thousands as members of SavePolaroid.com. Digital cameras that print instant pictures have materialized to fill the void, providing a practical substitute. But as in most affairs of the heart, logic is beside the point."
posted by Bob at
9:39 AM
1 Comments:
For anyone who loves photography, this is a sad day.
The magic of the Polaroid process, the extraordinary beauty of its one of a kind images were, almost from its beginning,magnets for artists in a way that few other processes have been. It was the greatest learning/teaching tool for two generations of photographers. By the fact that it produced a tangible,tactile,finished work of art on paper, one learned to appreciate the nuance of the craft in ways that an LCD is not likely to duplicate.
It was a company ahead of it's time,founded on the brilliance of its physicist/showman CEO, Dr.Edwin Land who wowed the press with high tech 50 years before Steve Jobs.
Dr. Land pioneered corporate collaboration with artists like Ansel Adams, and collected their art like a true patron.
Like all people of genius, when Dr.Land passed from the scene there was never really anyone to fill his shoes, and this day's die was cast.
Inevitable as it was, I will miss it like one misses an old friend and teacher.
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