Today, we’re going to talk about something that’s been on our radar for a while now; the Impossible Project! (now rebranded as Polaroid Originals after the merge of both companies) If you’ve not heard of it, the Impossible Project was founded in 2008 with one sole purpose; to keep Polaroid film alive. This came about when, in February 2008, Polaroid announced that it would stop making Polaroid instant film. This announcement would have meant the end of an era and the end for Polaroid instant film, as we know it. It’s been already 10 years now from that date and we are super proud for them, they made impossible very very possible, like buying the original company possible!

However, like every good story, Polaroid was saved thanks to a hero: Florian Kaps. He pulled together enough resources to buy Polaroid’s equipment and film stock, and because of his efforts Polaroid instant film is still in existence and used by many artists, creatives, and first time users today.

To magnify the importance we place on Polaroids, we actually set aside some time to catch up with THE Dr. Florian Kaps, the mastermind and superhero behind the project and ask him a few questions on the Impossible Project. While we know why we love Polaroid, we wanted to crawl into Florian’s mind and find out why he saved Polaroid and what was his motivation for doing something that seemed, well…rather impossible.

When we asked him about that moment when he decided to save Polaroid he said that “When I heard the announcement it suddenly became crystal clear that I needed to undertake everything to find an alternative and viable future for analog instant photography”. Something we and mainstream artists are grateful that he did.
But with every challenge, there’s always some obstacles, and we asked Florian what those obstacles were when he started the Impossible Project. He said that “One of the three biggest challenges in the project was: one, trying to get Polaroid to talk to me despite being brushed off; two, trying to stop the company from destroying any remaining instant film production machines; and three, sourcing all the investments in order to save and purchase those machines.” That sounds quite a challenge!

While the Impossible Project has successfully kept Polaroid from being eliminated from the analogue industry, we asked where Florian envisioned the project going five years from now. His biggest hope, he said, “Was that Polaroid will continue to spread the magic, unpredictability and uniqueness of analog instant photography in a world that is more and more dominated by masses of digital images.”

When we asked our final question, and that was what was his most valued image that he had taken on a Polaroid was, he said it was a self portrait. It was the first self portrait that he had ever tried to take of himself on a Polaroid camera and while it didn’t go as successfully as he had hoped, he still, to this day, cherishes it. So maybe we can credit Florian with the first Polaroid selfie? 😉

The Impossible Project was one of the biggest adventures Florian had ever embarked on and given another chance, he said he would do it all over again. He’s now currently working on another analogue adventure which you can follow along with him on at www.supersense.com.

While we have no association or ties with the Impossible Project, we love, support, and have a (serious) obsession with film, and consequently, we’re a big fan of the project. That’s why we wanted to raise awareness of its existence and share its magic with you.

Many of us at the lab are Impossible film shooters ourselves and not that we love it cause we don’t have to develop it or scan it (which might be true) but because it is a completely different feeling and a ritual to do so. Here are some examples from polaroid we did and we managed to keep.

*One of the big issues with polaroids that nobody talks about, subjects often want to keep them and it’s hard to say no

IMPORTANT TIP: We personally experienced how important is to keep the polaroid away from the sunlight once they have been shoot, at least keep them in the dark for 20-30min after shooting them. Also they do not like cold temperatures, if shoot in cold enviorments put them in your pocket or in your jacket to make sure they develop evenly 🙂

Funny thing is during the making of this article one of the photographers that work at the lab got approached by Polaroid to do some testing for new emulsions and collections and it’s actually featured on their website, congrats Hector!

Also we feel specialy in love with B&W polaroids, perhaps because it’s a very timeless feeling or just that sometimes we want to disconnect from color. In our experience we find the colors from the 600 series more pleasing than the colors in the SX-70 series, although the camera is much much pleasing to use and a marble of XXth century designed by Eams.

Polaroids are a creative, fun, and carefree option for professionals and non-professional photographers alike. They’re ideal for those who are open to spontaneity and don’t mind not having complete control over the resulting outcome of their images. It’s perfect for those who are wanting to capture a memory more than an impeccably controlled image. So if you think of yourself as a photographer who likes consistency in their images or who likes to have complete control over the light, Polaroids might not be the ideal medium in those instances.

But if you’re looking for another medium that will empower you as the photographer and developer, will give you a little more unpredictability, will offer a little bit more excitement, and will give you vibrant results that will be ingrained in your memory forever; Polaroids are where it’s at.

It’s an instant film that gives you so much in so little time. All you have to do is press the shutter, see the burst of flash, hear the trademark Polaroid sound, see the photograph roll out, and watch as your memory develops right before your eyes.

Wanna shoot some Polaroid?

Check our little shop to grab some instant film!
Need a camera? Check out the new Polaroid OneStep-2!

*All images are courtesy of Paula Codoñer, Hector Pozuelo and Albert Roig

Disposable cameras don’t get enough love, so we thought we would take a moment to shine our spotlight on one of our favourite disposable cameras: Ilford’s black and white single use cameras. Ilford currently has two versions of these in either of their C-41 Black & White film; the XP2 Super, or the true Black & White HP5 Plus. Both of which are ISO 400 films. These little guys also feature a built-in flash and can shoot up to 27 exposures. We recently decided to take our own little joyride on the XP2 and here are our thoughts on it!

For starters, we like the way this camera looks! Most single use cameras aren’t quite as snazzy or as retro as this little one, and we dig it! We are also head over heels in love with the weight (or lack thereof) of Ilford’s disposable XP2 camera. Typically when you’re shooting film on a regular film body set up (whether it be 35mm or medium format bodies), more than likely it’s going to have a little heft to it. But with a disposable you are allowed to forget that you’re even carrying a camera on you. It’s a carefree way of capturing beautiful memories in black and white 🙂

by Birgit Hart

The XP2 disposable camera uses a black and white film that can easily be developed using the standard C41 process. All this basically means is: you can have the film developed at any local camera shop or film lab that can develop ordinary color film. Cheaper developing, no dust and high dynamic range!

We tested this little guy in both indoor and outdoor light and what we found was that the XP2 film yields an amazing contrast and has an extremely wide exposure latitude making it suitable for a variety of lighting conditions. Some might say that this camera does better outdoors in bright light but we found that if you use the flash indoors we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how good the results can be indoors too! (pro tip: use the flash no matter what your lighting conditions are! You can’t go wrong using it and it will give your image an extra pop!)

by Joe Newmarch

We also did find that you will get a soft vignette on your film, which means the edges won’t be crisp, but, honestly we don’t think they need to be. This delightful result adds uniqueness and character to the image and coupled with black and white film just makes it timeless!

Our staff has unrestrainedly embraced this fun, portable, plastic wrapped, stuffed with black and white film, piece of joy and we simply can’t get enough of it! It’s a fun and different way to get into black and white photography. It’s also ideal for those who want to get into shooting film but are intimidated by the learning curve, or even for those who have forgotten about how fun film is!

by Kathleen Frank

In our experience, we can say without a doubt this is the perfect gift, both to give and to get. Got a friend going on a long trip and want to give them something meaningful? Throwing someone a birthday party? Got a friend that likes photography but never really takes pictures? Perhaps you want to capture the behind the scenes at your next workshop?

There’s no doubt the Ilford’s single use camera is an ideal way to capture those moments with a timeless black and white flavour.

We were terribly excited when Ilford announced these single use guys back in 2012, and we have to admit, little by little we came to love them. In fact, every time there is a event at the lab we have to bulk order them! Not to sell them, but to use them ourselves 🙂

It’s a nice throwback to the old family days, when single use cameras were queens and you had to wait a good week after coming back home to see any of your holiday memories. But more importantly, it’s our favourite way to carelessly capture the most ordinary memories in our lives, which, more often than not, are the most unique ones.

by Kathleen Frank

*Want more information like the specs of this single use camera like focal length, aperture, and more? Check it out on Ilford’s technical information here.

You can get yours in our little shop too!

OK, so for a while we’ve been wanting to explain a couple of film technicalities that we’re pretty sure will change many people’s understanding of film and exposure.
Alright, take a deep breath ‘cause this stuff is easy but sometimes difficult to explain in written communication.

So the thing is that exposure on film (unlike in digital photography) is not equivalent at all to overall brightness of an image. For example, in the digital photography world when someone speaks of an overexposed image you instantly imagine a bright, all-white image with (probably) clipped highlights. In the film world this is not necessarily so.

Color film’s latitude is huge. Like 2-3 stops for underexposure and up to 6 spots for over-exposure (depending on the film stock). Also clipped highlights are literally impossible on film (straight from the scanner).
Add to this awesome characteristics the fact that brightness can be controlled during the scanning process.
Now this “overexposed = bright all-white” and “underexposed = dark black” rules of thumb start to make less sense right?
So then what’s the big deal with all that “overexposed 1 stop” etc film talk you read everywhere on the Internets?

OK, so we’ve had so many questions about this and we’ve told so many customers on our Wetransfer feedbacks that we decided to shoot some stuff and show you guys how this thing works.
Here’s a shot of our colleague Héctor we shot on Fuji 400H film and a Contax 645 medium format camera.
We metered with our handheld (incident) light meter below his chin with the bulb out facing the shooter. That shot will be considered our “anchor” or “box speed” example, meaning it was shot at 400 ISO not over or under-exposing.
From there we shot in one stop increments down to 6 steps under (all the way to the left) and up to 6 steps over (all the way to the right… yeah, 1/15 handheld at f2 right there!).
We then scanned these on our Fuji Frontier SP3000 at the same brightness level (important).
Make sure you click on the images to view larger and even the upper right hand icon to for full size 😉

Here’s the full spectrum of the 13 stops of the test

Now zooming in on the Overexposure side

And finally the Underexposure side of the test. (yeah, the -6 was Héctor’s profile pic for a while 😛 )

We did the same thing for these shots of our colleague Gloria , but this time in a totally different light situation and on Kodak Portra 400 film.

What conclusions can be made from this test?

Well… first of all… 6 stops overexposed? And it still looks amazing? That’s pretty sweet.
Overall, there seems to be a higher number of usable shots on the overexposure side than on the underexposure side. So what does this tell us? Film LOVES overexposure. Unlike what happens in digital photography, with overexposure film gets a little more saturated and you get more details on the shadows, but definitely no clipped highlights or “all-white” burnt images. That’s why it’s totally safe to say that if you’re in doubt between two possible camera values for your exposure you’ll always be safer on the “over” side than on the “under” one.

It must be noted also that underexposure brings out grain and colors shifts and extreme overexposure will make images flat, contrast-less and with magenta or yellow highlights.

So again, remember that for these tests we scanned all images at equal brightness, so that’s why you get a -6 image full of grainy shadows and a +6 image that’s less bright than you’d expect. So underexposed images can be brightened by “bringing up” grainy shadows (hello VSCO look!) and overexposed images can be “brought down” so they don’t look hyper white-ish.

Also bare in mind that these were scanned and then posted UNEDITED. It goes without saying that with very basic edits the -1 shot can be made to look maybe similar to the correctly exposed one and for example the -3 can be scanned darker and slightly edited to look more “chiaroscuro”-like, but you get the picture, right? (no pun intended;) )

So that’s a lot of info to digest!
Hope this clarifies some doubts that so many of our customers have written to us about and that it helped you somehow to be more confident when you’re shooting and getting you closer to the look you want out of your scans.

Happy shooting!

Carmencita Team