Guessing it’s from the late nineties or early aughts.
The camera is an SLR 690, the last really great camera Polaroid made, produced principally for the Japanese market.
Photo from Seven for All Mankind.
The polymath Yalie actor-artist established his Pola-cred with a little show at the Impossible Project earlier this year. He’s gone on to a bigger stage now, with a line of T-shirts produced by the denim designers 7 For All Mankind that feature his Polaroid work. And he’s pretty good! I like ’em. (Not sure I like them $89 worth, but there are plenty of people in the world for whom that’s a rounding error.)
Photo on Impossible’s 8×10 test film by Melodie McDaniel.
A few weeks back, on July 1, we here in Polaroidland posted about the Impossible Project’s reintroduction of 8×10 instant film. Well, some other newsgathering organization over on Eighth Avenue has finally got around to this huge breaking story, a mere seven weeks after we did. Now you know who’s the best source for your not-quite-dead-photographic-technologies news.
Seriously, though, I’m pleased to see that this product is getting great press, and making so many people excited about instant pictures again. I’m sorry to have missed the party at Impossible’s gallery last night, which appears to have pulled in a big happy crowd.
The film itself, being first of a new generation, has some of the not-a-bug-it’s-a-feature qualities of Impossible’s other products. The contrast is not yet all it could be, and it’s still prone to some blotchiness–though less so than the consumer formats, since 8×10 is handled in a film holder that is light-tight and thus does not require extra shielding. Also, because it’s an integral film rather than a DTR material, the film sheet is exposed directly, like a plate, meaning that the image is flipped as on a daguerreotype.
Bugs, shmugs: I’ll take it. Or, rather, I would, if only they were able to make it in the 4×5 format for which I have a camera. Sadly, that product is not going to be produced: Impossible was able to save the 8×10 production machines from demolition but not the 4×5 ones. (Once again: Damn you Tom Petters.) For that, we’ll all have to wait for New55, and believe me I am.
We’ve talked plenty over here about the New55 Project, Bob Crowley’s extremely promising attempt to reintroduce, and improve upon, Polaroid’s Type 55 positive/negative instant film. But I was floored to see (via the 20×24 Studio) this set of photos, for which a Flickr user named julsdylan has made his (or her?) own pos-neg film.
Negative test. Copyright © Julzdylan, all rights reserved. Link to originals above.
Well. He calls it “55 like,” and although the results are pretty crude and experimental, this speaks pretty loudly about the love for instant-photo materials. Seriously–if suddenly you couldn’t get some familiar consumer product like a cell phone or a car, would you take it upon yourself to build your own? This person did. Amazing. Hats off.
Homemade pod. Copyright © Julzdylan, all rights reserved. Link to originals above.
The guy behind her is M. Ward, Deschanel’s musical partner in the band She & Him.
As for the camera, it appears to be an SLR 680, Polaroid’s flagship integral-film model from the early eighties, or possibly its nearly identical successor the 690. The portrait itself looks to have been shot on 35-mm. film, judging by the sprocket holes, making this a double-analog feast. (Or a good fake.) Also clever, on the (unidentified) photographer’s part: the far more famous face of the two is covered.
It’s just a sentence or two, but I am grateful for it: My colleagues at New York magazine were nice enough to include INSTANT: THE STORY OF POLAROID in the Fall Preview issue. We’re a prolific bunch of authors there this fall—three books total, with more to come next year—and the writeup about the trio is here. More to come! (I hope.)
BUY THE BOOK
Available in many bookstores, online and off-. Click the photo to order from my local, the Strand Book Store.
BUY THE OTHER BOOK
WATCH THE TRAILER
On Vimeo: click the image to view.
