Polaroid: R.I.P.

Travel back in time with me circa the mid 1960s.  My father, who normally had his pictures processed as 35 mm slides, came home with a new invention. (For my sarcastic children who may be reading this blog, yes, we had electricity and, yes, we had indoor plumbing at the time . . .)  This new invention was a Polaroid camera.

Sunday after church, Dad would shepherd us outside to stand in front of the pink climbing rose bush.  Dressed in our Sunday best and our hair curly from sleeping with pink sponge curlers wound in our hair, we shyly grinned (yes, I was, and still am shy, contrary to popular belief) while Dad snapped our picture.  We huddled around Dad eagerly watching our picture appear.  It was magic.

Fast forward to this year. I just found out that Polaroid is shutting down its film manufacturing lines and abandoning the technology that made the company famous. No more instant film.  Living in a world with digital cameras and phones that take pictures, am I surprised?  No.  Am I saddened?  A wee bit.

My grandson will probably never see a real Polaroid picture.  He might not even know Polaroid pictures existed.  This little bit of photography history might fade away (as did the Polaroid pictures over time) into oblivion or be relegated only to museum displays about the history of photography.

Please.  A moment of silence to honor the passing of such innovative technology.

Thank you.

However, to preserve the ‘look’ of Polaroid pictures, you can download a free software from Poladroid (did you catch that clever name??) that creates Poaroid like pictures.  Like these:

It’s a fun little application to use. And did I say it was free? It is available for Mac OS 10.4 (and later versions) with the Windows version currently in alpha testing.

Maybe if I create enough of these pictures and save them, then Spencer will understand about Polaroid pictures.

Maybe.