Polaroid have decided to call it a day after 60 years of instant photography. A revolution in photography when the Land Camera was first introduced by Edwin Land in 1947 after his little daughter demanded to know why she couldnt see the picture he took of her straight away, he got his thinking cap on and produced what became known as the Polaroid camera.

The camera was a near instant success, but decades later after many innovations and variations and a big financial bale out in recent times, Polaroid announced at the start of this month that they were closing factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands and were going to re-direct their efforts, understandably enough, in the digital photography market, producing small scale photo printers and the like.

This will be a sad day for many aficionados. The fashion industry is a heavy user of Polaroid's, used heavily during castings and fashion shows and the camera itself has had a mini-renaissance in the last 10 years or so. But the advent of digital cameras and the fact that now every phone allows you to take a picture was really the final nail in the coffin.

There is still hope for instant lovers though, Polaroid are offering the licence to make their film up to anybody who wants to keep that fire burning, having been super protective of it in the past and there are a number of third party manufacturers of instant film out there that just may be interested. In the mean time, one of the products Polaroid will be concentrating on will be the ZINK - a Zero ink photo printer about the size of a deck of cards.

queenlataoife @ 29 Mar 2008 12:21

Haven't used one in years but still sorry to hear it's going. I'm pretty sure I still have a Polaroid of my first visit to Santa Claus around somewhere :)

The photographer Jeremy Kost has made a career of using it: www.roidrage.com, apparently he is not too worried though as if it does become obsolete it will only add to the value of his previous work.