Are you a Poloroid photographer? Well practicing your art has just become more difficult. Poloroid has announced it is out of the film making business. According to a New York Times article this week, Poloroid

“…which stopped making instant cameras for consumers a year ago and for commercial use a year before that, said today that as soon as it had enough instant film manufactured to last it through 2009, it would stop making that, too.“

The instantaneous of Polaroid prints apparently lost its uniqueness some time ago. Not so long ago I can remember it being magic to push a button and seconds later get a print to hold in your hand. It seems now digital photography has replaced the once revolutionary instant Poloroid camera and film.

I will miss the Polaroid. Don’t get me wrong, I love digital. I perhaps love the instant feed back I get with digital most of all. Digital in many ways is more efficient than the Poloroid. However, digital does not leave me with anything physical that I can hold in my hand. At least not instantaneously.

Carrying a Poloroid camera was once a great tool for me as a travel photographer. What a thrill it was to snap a photo of children in Nepal and let them see themselves in a photo I just made. Yes, you can turn your digital camera around and let them look at themselves on the tiny LCD screen. But with digital there is nothing tophysically leave with them. A Poloroid print was a gift from me to them. A “thank you” for letting me take make a picture of them: It’s better to give than to take.

Perhaps the biggest loss with the discontinuation of Poloroid films is the loss of Poloroid Art. Polaroid film is an important tool in many alternative photographic processes. Although I never really got into it, there are many really cool photos and effects that are made using Poloroid film. Poloroid transfer, Poloroid emulsion manipulations, etching and hand coloring on Poloroids are just a few techniques that will probably be lost forever.

See some examples of Polaroid art here in particular look at the Creative Processes section.

Read the full New York Times article here

Please post your comments about what the loss of polaroid cameras and film means to you below. I would love to hear how this does or does not effect you and your photography.