New Polaroid Camera and The Impossible Project

So, a few days ago I found a really cool looking, vintage Polaroid camera, pictured here, on craigslist. I called the woman, she was very nice, she mentioned the camera had been in her closet for twenty years. I drove there, tried it, it worked, paid her, and left.

I get home and go online to find where to buy more film for the camera. It is a Spirit 600 Polaroid Camera, circa 1983, I believe. Much to my chagrin, within minutes of tearing open the film package that came with it and snapping off a couple photos, I find out that Polaroid discontinued production of all classic Polaroid film, including shutting down the factories where the film was made. This happened in 2008.

Apparently, because of this, there was a mad rush on Polaroid film, and when I went to Amazon to search for film, prices ranged from forty dollars to one hundred dollars, and that was for one pack of ten shots.
I look down at my two "test" shots that were still developing in front of me. Five dollars for a picture of my brother on the couch. Five dollars for a picture of our backyard from the sun room. Hmph.

So, like everyone, I went online to rant and vent. On twitter, I complained:

just read that Polaroid stopped making 600 film. so for 1 pack of film, that has 10 shots in it, amazon charges $39.99 (at the lowest) 5:50 PM Feb 15th
4 dollars a photo! 5:52 PM Feb 15th
make every picture count 5:56 PM Feb 15th

One hour later, someone noticed my complaints, and responded:

@ImpossibleUSA to @thegratefulone: we sell 600 film for $21/pack on our retail site (polapremium.com) it'll be fully restocked by the end of the week. 6:56 PM Feb 15th
ImpossibleUSA to @thegratefulone: p.s. we're also making NEW 600 film. B&W will be out in the spring and color in the summer :) 6:57 PM Feb 15th

How awesome. A group called The Impossible Project and a company called PolaPremium had bought almost all of the remaining Polaroid film and were not only selling it much cheaper than people on Amazon and Ebay, but were also in the process of making new film. Amazing.
So, this is all leading up to a point. I am going to start dedicating part of this blog, The Perpetual Log, to infinite awesomeness of Polaroid pictures. Since they still right now cost around four to five dollars a photo, I am backing them up digitally, and will post them as they happen. Probably one a week.

Here are the first two.

Here are a the links to the sites described above:

• http://www.polapremium.com
• http://www.the-impossible-project.com/2009
• http://twitter.com/ImpossibleUSA

Cheers!