Local photographer Dan Jeter’s first camera was a black-and-white Polaroid, which he bought as a teenager in 1964 from Zayre with money earned at his grandparents’ restaurant.
He, like many other shutterbugs of the period, cut his photographic teeth on a Polaroid.
“If you’re my age and into photography, it was a tool you started off on or came in contact with,” Mr. Jeter said. “It’s like the point-and-shoot cameras now.”
Sixty years after Polaroid Corp. introduced the instant film that made it a household name, the company plans to production of the film by year’s end.
Reaction from Polaroid fans online was swift and emotional to the announcement last month.
One site, www.savepolaroid.com, sprang up to encourage fans of instant film to “convince another company to take over and begin producing the cherished technology that Polaroid has abandoned.”
Med Dement, founder of Med Dement House of Photography, said that for commercial photographers the ability to snap photos and view instant results with a relatively cheap product saved time and waste of more expensive materials.
“The quality was not great, but it was a useful tool,” he said. “We used to run through boxes and boxes of that stuff to determine lighting and contrast before taking a final photo. That way, it was easier and cheaper.”
The growing popularity of digital photography prompted the company to stop making the film, according to a new release.
Mr. Jeter said that, despite a slight nostalgic twinge, instant film’s passing won’t affect many photographers.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to miss it,” he said, adding he still has a Polaroid that hasn’t been used in several years. “There are some people out there who are purists and say that if it’s not on film, it’s not photography, but digital photography has come a long way.”
Milton McLain, president-elect of the Chattanooga Photographic Society, said Polaroid opened the world of photography to the amateur, a legacy that lives on in the digital age.
“(Polaroid film) was the equivalent of the cell phone pictures of younger folks today,” he said. “Now, you can snap a quick picture on your cell phone and e-mail it to your friend instantly, and Polaroid was advertised as a way to do that with your friends.”
With a development time of about a minute, Polaroid instant film developed at a glacial pace in comparison to the split-second results of today’s cameras, but it helped create the expectation for rapid results, Mr. Dement said.
“I think one of the things Polaroid did was truly indoctrinate the era of instant gratification of the digital world we live in,” he said. “The novelty of watching it develop gave you that instant gratification that normally was reserved for photographers in the darkroom.
“For family and vacation stuff, it was a cool solution to bad photography,” Mr. Dement said. “It’ll be sad to see it go.”
DON’T MISS OUT
Want to stock up on Polaroid’s instant film before it’s discontinued? Here are some area locations still carrying the film:
* Walgreens Pharmacies
* CVS Pharmacies
* Rite-Aid Pharmacies
* Wal-Mart (in the one-hour photo department)
* Wolf Camera on Ringgold Road
* Also available online at Polaroid.com
Casey Phillips has worked as a features reporter in the Life department for three years. He writes about entertainment, young adults, animals and people of interest. Casey hails from Knoxville and earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism and a bachelor of arts in German. He previously worked as the features editor for Sidelines at Middle Tennessee State University. Casey received the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists Award of Excellence for Reviewing/Criticism in ...
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