Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

kottke.org posts about Polaroid

Polaroid experiments

Peter Miller has done a number of projects that involve directly exposing Polaroid instant film. Static Fields:

These Polaroids were illuminated by their own electrocution. They are cameraless images, which are immediate records of the bolts of electricity that passed through them.

Lightning Bugs:

My brother helped me catch these, we let them loose on the Polaroids in the basement. Polaroids are positives. This is a record of lightning bug dance-steps. Look closely and you can see the shadows of their legs.

Polaroid Self Portrait:

Polaroids are removed from their case in a darkroom, laid flat and exposed as a single, light sensitive array. After they are exposed, they are reinserted into the pack and -with the lens now covered- can be processed by simply pressing the camera’s shutter and processing the film by ejecting it from the camera.


NYC Polaroid film cache

I know that Polaroid announced last year that they were ceasing production of their instant film and that people have begun to hoard film as it becomes more difficult to find. To NYC hoarders: there are 30-40 10-packs of Polaroid 600 film at the CVS on the corner of Nassau and Fulton. Didn’t catch the price but they’re at the photo processing counter past the registers. Or you could just wait it out.


Demo film of the Polaroid SX-70 made

Demo film of the Polaroid SX-70 made by Charles and Ray Eames but set to a soundtrack of The Cramps performing Garbageman. Wot? (via spurgeonblog)


Polaroid is going to stop manufacturing film

Polaroid is going to stop manufacturing film for their instant cameras, which they stopped making a year ago.

The company, which stopped making instant cameras for consumers a year ago and for commercial use a year before that, said today that as soon as it had enough instant film manufactured to last it through 2009, it would stop making that, too. Three plants that make large-format instant film will close by the end of the quarter, and two that make consumer film packets will be shut by the end of the year, Bloomberg News reports.

Hopefully someone else will pick up where they left off; Polaroid is willing to license the manufacturing technology to other companies. (via clusterflock)


Turn your favorite photo into a Polaroid with the Polaroid-o-nizer

Turn your favorite photo into a Polaroid with the Polaroid-o-nizer.