Look through a lens, push a button, hear a “clack” and extract a small film. Then wait ten, twenty, thirty minutes, until the image materializes, takes shape and color. And understand only then if the trip came as we expected, or worse. Or maybe unexpectedly better. Snap a Polaroid is one of those experiences that smartphones made us forget, but that soon could come back in vogue thanks to the I-1 Impossible, a sort of “Polaroid 2.0″, the only one that uses the films and original format.
Today any one of us has in his pocket a mobile phone with a camera with the potential of a professional machine. An ultra-compact instrument that allows you to take pictures at will, change them instantly, to insert filters and publish the result on the Net. All in a matter of seconds. It is the hi-tech, beauty shot after (auto) shooting, the older analog cameras were subissate and set aside.
But when something becomes obsolete, here is another mechanism that is activated, fast and punctual as the advance of technological progress, like a conditioned reflex. It’s vintage, a phenomenon which is a mixture of nostalgia and fashion and it succeeds in the miraculous feat of resurrecting what seemed extinct. Here then return the vinyl music. And here come back the concept of Polaroid photography. Today there are several alternatives snapshot cameras, which develop and print immediately the pictures on film. Fujifilm has made an entire line, Instax, ranging from the compact Mini 8 to the largest Wide 210, equipped with a LCD display.
Another historical house, Lomo (whose iconic machines from 2006 are reproduced by a Chinese company that has taken over the brand) offers a wide range of instant cameras, from the economic White Edition, sold at 99 €, up to the most complex wide Central Park, from 259 Euros. Even the same Polaroid tried to produce a new camera that prints the photos at the time: it is Snap, compact machine from colored plastic shell that costs about 130 euro.
There are some who did back to the “real” Polaroid a real mission. No coincidence that the name of the company in question is Impossible: the latter in 2008 he decided to buy the last Polaroid factory in Enschede, the Netherlands, immediately before it was decommissioned. Sharing almost from scratch, he spent several years in finding old Polaroid cameras around the world and ricondizionarle, keeping alive the film and its traditional format.
Until she decided to give birth to a new machine that the square shape recalls the traditional Polaroid, but with new digital features. I-1, which will be distributed in Italy by Nikon UK from the end of May, however, can be used in a totally analog: inserting the cartridges (those produced by Impossible or old Polaroid cartridges), you shoot and you’re done . The camera also has a dedicated app, through which regular light, exposure, self timer and other parameters, and is equipped with an LED flash that also gives indications on the battery charge level and the number of remaining shots.
PROS AND CONS
If you want you can also scan the picture you have just made using the smartphone’s camera and then share it on the Net. But that would go against the fundamental concept and even more inviting snapshot cameras: the uniqueness of the photograph that is taken. Which is also a great antidote to the unwanted spread of photos over the Web, which is a risk you take whenever you have images in digital format on an Internet-connected device, be it smartphone or PC. The case of the stolen shots at red lights by some Hollywood stars like Jennifer Lawrence phones has caught on to that effect. Well, if those photos had been taken with a camera like the E-1, probably would not be finished on the screens of half the world.
But the analog also has another side of the coin, we are not more accustomed to thinking. The price, first of all. The “thrill vintage” direct heir of the Polaroid is expensive: not so much for 299 € of the machine, as for € 20 needed to buy a cartridge with only 8 shots. In practice, 2,50 € per photo. Not to mention the risk of “accidents” as the shutter does not open (and the photo is black), or the development of the image in poor conditions can lead to mixed colors or parts of damaged image. Which, if desired, it can be considered a charm more reason, but maybe not. How he wants the saying, modified for the occasion: Who wants to look vintage, a (nice) just has to suffer.
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