There’s something magical about the experience of shooting with Polaroid film, no matter how many times you see it roll out of a camera and wait for it to develop. It’s clear it’s a complicated process even without understanding the ins-and-outs of how it’s produced. But, in a recent video, Polaroid has pulled back the curtain, revealing just how complex Polaroid film is.
The video provides a behind-the-scenes look, walking you through the Polaroid factory in Enschede, Netherlands, the only place where Polaroid film is made. It shows the entire process from start to finish, including the mixing of the developer, the cutting of the negative sheets in complete darkness with night vision goggles, how the cassettes are made and more, all the way to quality control and boxing up the finished product.
While the video touches on some of it, it doesn’t go into all the details of how interesting the history of the factory is. The factory doors closed in 2008, but a small group managed to save the company, bringing it back, albeit in a much smaller form. For some time, it produced film under the name The Impossible Project. In 2017 the company rebranded as Polaroid Originals, and then in 2020, it was able to rebrand as Polaroid once again. You can watch a full documentary on the story on YouTube as well.
“I mean, this is an ancient technology that nobody uses anymore. So it’s not like we can just say hey, let’s replace it and put a whole new brains in it.”
It’s fascinating to see that the factory still uses the same process and machinery as it did in the 1970s. “There’s a lot of frustration. You’ve got to have patience. We’ve got a machine here from the seventies,” explains an employee named Andrew in the video.”It stops, starts, stops, starts. I mean, this is an ancient technology that nobody uses anymore. So it’s not like we can just say hey, let’s replace it and put a whole new brains in it. We’ve got to try and make do with what we’ve got, which means refurbishing parts, which means having people learn how this works and specialize in it.”
The video also touches on the formula of the film. Anyone familiar with the early Impossible Project days will remember how rough around the edges that film was. I purchased many packs for my beloved SX-70, most of which didn’t turn out. While the current film is significantly better than it used to be, it still isn’t quite where Polaroid film was quality-wise. Andrew says in the video that they know the quality isn’t as good as the original Polaroids, but he explains that the original formula wasn’t very environmentally friendly and they are trying to address that.
Whether you shoot Polaroid or not, it is interesting to see the complex process behind something that played such a significant role in the history of photography.
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This article comes from DP Review and can be read on the original site.
