Death of the ‘Roid

Polaroid announced Friday they were closing down film production facilities in Massachusetts. The closure will lay off 150 people. In Polaroid’s hey day they employed 15,000 in the state.

It’s a sad day for me. I love Polaroids. The colors are totally unique -- no matter how you shape, twist or manipulate digital you just can’t match it.

You can walk around any street in the world and make people smile with a Polaroid. A Polaroid camera is just one of those “friendly” things people gravitate toward.

I used SX-70 cameras for fine art as well as some commercial assignments. I would manipulate the emulsion while it processed to create series of “mini-Monet” renderings. It was artistic and therapeutic. You just couldn’t have a bad day when you were toying with a toothpick on a Polaroid.

Sadly no one will ever have that experience again. Time marches on.

When I made my conversion to total digital production almost a decade ago I knew the world was changing. I knew many of the things I loved would soon be going away.

Goodbye dear friend, I’ll miss you.