theimpossibleproject

Polaroid Originals Announces the End of Spectra Instant Film

Polaroid Originals—the artist formerly known as The Impossible Project—made a sad announcement on its blog yesterday. After determining that the wide-format Polaroid Spectra cameras out in the wild "are now coming to the end of their useful lives," the company has decided to discontinue production of Spectra instant film.

The Impossible Project Debuts Its Very First Camera, The I-1

Everybody is "reinventing" things these days, but even still, we would be lying if we said we weren't at least intrigued by the all-new Impossible Project I-1. It's the company's very first camera, or, as they put it, "The Original Instant Camera. Reinvented."

A Look Inside Impossible’s Instant Film Factory

Want an inside look at how The Impossible Project makes its instant film? The folks over at Highsnobiety recently paid a visit to the company's factory in Enschede, which it purchased from Polaroid and rebooted. The 3-minute video above shows various steps of the instant film creation process, from development, to assembly, to boxing it up for shipping.

Impossible Project Gen 2.0 Instant Film to Be Faster and Sharper Thanks to Polaroid DNA

Impossible launched its first lines of instant film in 2010 after acquiring Polaroid manufacturing machines and leasing an old Polaroid production plant. Although its efforts did bring "Polaroid pictures" back from the dead, its initial offerings suffered from poor image quality and slow development times.

There will soon be a great leap forward, though. Impossible is announcing today that it is launching Generation 2.0 film that promises to be better in speed, sharpness, and tonality.

The Impossible Project Launches New Round Frame Color Instant Film

The Impossible Project is continuing to branch out from the standard frame design for instant photos that made the original Polaroid pictures iconic. Last year the company launched a new line of film with colorful frames. This year it's the shape that's getting a makeover: the company has unveiled a new color instant film with round frames rather than square ones.

‘Consistent Quality Photographic Film Will Be Impossible to Make’

The Economist has published an article on photographic film's "transition from the mass market to the artisanal," writing that the future is bleak for film as we know it:

Consumers and professionals ditched film first. Then health-care services, which used it for X-rays, shifted to digital scans. The final blow came with the film industry's switch to digital projection. IHS iSuppli [...] estimates filmmakers consumed 2.5m miles [...] of film each year for the distribution of prints at its height. That was just a few years ago. By 2012 this plunged by two-thirds. In 2015 it will be next to nothing.

Polaroid Jacket Lets You Wear What the Company’s Factory Workers Wore

After Polaroid film died off, the The Impossible Project spent years rebooting the factories and breathing new life into old lines of instant film. However, the white-bordered film isn't the only thing Impossible has brought back from the dead. The company has also recreated Polaroid fashion from decades ago, launching the Polaroid Classic Factory Jacket.

The Impossible Project VP Talks About Resurrecting the Polaroid Instamatic

ReutersTV shared this video today in which its Social Media Editor Anthony De Rosa meets up with The Impossible Project VP Dave Bias to talk about the company and what it's up to. Bias gives a demo of the new Impossible Instant Lab -- similar to what we shared from Photokina -- showing how it takes iPhone pixels and "melts them back down into chemistry".

Shooting with the First Lot of Impossible’s New 8×10 Large Format Instant Film

San Diego-based photographer Tim Mantoani, the guy who shot giant Polaroid photos of famous photographers holding their works, recently got his hands on Lot #1 of The Impossible Project's new 8x10 instant film. To test it out, Mantoani busted out his large format camera and 8x10 processor, and then visited a local surf shop to create a multi-shot panorama.

The Impossible Project’s COOL Instant Film Takes a Cue from Coors Beer

You wouldn't think the world of instant film could learn much from the world of beer -- and on most counts you'd be right -- but in this particular case, a little bit of Coors inspiration may have played a role in The Impossible Projects new line of COOL Polaroid films. The specialty instant film, part of The Impossible Project's Spring 2012 line, are kept in a temperature-sensitive package. In order to maintain its shelf life, the packaging will warn you when you're storing it in too warm an environment by displaying the message "Keep Me Cool."

Giant 20×24 Polaroid Photography Lives on Through NY Studio

Meet the 20x24 Polaroid Land Camera, a mythical beast in the world of large format photography. Polaroid's founder Edwin Land created only seven of these 235-pound cameras over thirty years ago, and only six exist today. Two of them are on display at Harvard and MIT, and only four are in use commercially. According to Forbes, buying prints created with this beast cost $3,500 a piece, while renting the thing for a day costs $1,750 and $200 for each shot. Back in June, an Andy Warhol photo shot with the camera sold for a quarter of a million bucks.