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Devotees snap up Polaroid stocks

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Seamus Bradley
June 29,
2008

Four months after Polaroid announced it was halting production, Polaroid
lovers are feeling the pain. Their film supply is running out fast.

The decline in film stocks at retail outlets has been accelerated by
thousands of young people who in the past year pushed sales of the camera to new
highs.

John Rule, national sales and marketing manager of Hagemeyer Photographics,
which represents Polaroid in Australia, said the company was surprised by the
camera's sudden popularity with the young.

"To you and me it's old technology but to teenagers in a nightclub it's new
technology; most of them have never experienced a Polaroid camera before.
They're interested in it, they like it, it's unique. It's instant gratification
and it's driven kids into retail stores all around the country at a rate of
three-and-a-half times the original forecast," he said.

But only artists and photographers will properly mourn the death of the
classic Polaroid. They love the unexpected quality of its prints - a soft,
almost out-of-focus, three-dimensional quality that serves up instant
nostalgia.

Photographic artist Drew Pettifer is already grieving. About a quarter of his
work is with Polaroid instant film and though he is buying and hoarding as much
film as he can find and afford, he is devastated by Polaroid's decision. "My DIY
aesthetic is under threat," he said.

For Pettifer, whose latest exhibition finished yesterday at Melbourne's
Blindside Gallery, digital photography is no substitute. "Polaroids have nice
washed-out tones and you get interesting and varied colour saturation," he
said.

Even the cost of Polaroid film, about $2.50 a snap, isn't enough to make him
embrace the new technology. "Digital is too flat, too polished," he said.

Photographer Arsineh Houspian has been using instant cameras for more than a
decade.

"Polaroids make a complete snapshot; it can make great photographs look less
formal and happy snaps look edgy," she said.

"You have that two minutes of waiting and you can watch it develop, so even
though it is instant, it's got the sense of the darkroom as well." She has only
one question: "Why are they stopping it?" And there's only one answer: digital
cameras.

In the next couple of years Polaroid, whose first camera went on the market
in 1947, is "transitioning" instant film users to Polaroid digital products.

The US and British markets are gearing up for PoGo ("Polaroid on the Go"), a
wireless, inkless printer for mobile phones and digital cameras that produces
borderless prints of business-card size. And a digital version of Polaroid's
classic camera, with instant, inkless prints, is thought to be in the
pipeline.

Meanwhile Mr Rule said there is plenty of Polaroid instant film in Australian
warehouses. He estimates that, depending on global demand, stocks won't run out
until towards the end of next year, or perhaps some time in 2010.

While teenagers, intrigued by Polaroid's beautiful old instant technology,
will move seamlessly to new products, photographers such as Pettifer reckon
there's only one problem - the prints "won't be anything like a real
Polaroid".
Source: The Sun-Herald

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1214677822365-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/devotees-snap-up-polaroid-stocks/2008/06/28/1214677822365.htmlsmh.com.auThe
Sun-Herald2008-06-29Devotees
snap up Polaroid stocksSeamus
Bradley
Technology
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/05/16/th_camerageneric1_index-thumb__60x40.jpg

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