Life extension for instant photography.

The pictures are small, rather poor quality, ecologically a sin, completely overtaken by the time - and a cult, as they say: Polaroid may be the production of its instant cameras and films have, but they live on. A persistent fan wants a "Pola" Factory revive.

 

Prints, wag, wait 90 seconds - and comes out is always unique. Polaroids, once for party-loved photography and art, were in the age of digital cameras quickly depreciated. The films are not produced anymore, their techniques do not in time. But right now, the analog authenticity more and more people. "Pola"-lovers have thousands of recent films Immediately hoarded at home. The community of digital rebels is growing - and an Austrian, the "movies with a built-in chemical lab" now even restore it.

dpa
Polaroid Cameras: The instant process has always been expensive, quality rather bad - and fascinating. Until today, fans swear to

Florian Kaps is a man for the impossible. "The impossible project" he calls his vision - probably because even after a year still does not have a lot to the success believe. When the Polaroid factory in Enschede, Holland in June 2008 concluded, for Kaps was clear: Somehow, it must go with the instant pictures. "Polaroids are, finally, for one of the very last analogue media products," says the 39-year-old enthusiastically. Ado, he bought the old Polaroid machines rented the factory in Holland. In the coming year is to start production - with a million movies.

Until then, cape and his immediate staff the film virtually reinvent. The chemicals, which used the "magic secret" of the photo of PET, are no longer manufactured. "We are now looking for others who have the same effect," he explains. The walk only with the know-how of people who have long worked with instant images have. Kaps has twelve of the once 180-Polaroid employees. One may not believe that these men a modern start-up form: "The average age 55th"

While the chemist in Enschede, just in a latex problem tinkering, the first German instant print shop in Berlin has opened. Again, the Vienna Kaps his fingers in the game. "Especially in the creative scene in Berlin, there are many Pola fans," he says. The tiny shop in the trendy district of Prenzlauer Berg is a meeting place for lovers and artists, said Marlene Kelnreiter, which manages the store. Exhibitions and camera rental operations, the "magic of Polaroids" across.

Increased demands on the "clippers"

"Polaroids are really absolutely magical," confirms Sabine Schnakenberg from the Hamburg Museum of Photography. Nowhere else would you "is extremely close to the process of photo development dran," she says. In simple terms - in the hands kneading, warming with the lighter - results from a photograph a work of art. Instant photos have Schnakenberg "an entirely different aesthetic effect as digital photography."

Even artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein appreciated the "Pola" - for old-fashioned honesty and charm of the imperfect. "Instant photography pictures are for advanced," said Schnakenberg. Each image will be accurately planned, almost celebrated. "So it gets a very different value."

"The color, shaking reflex when developing," said Cape, "brings a very intimate, personal relationship to the image. This is rare in the digital world." Also new invention Polaroids "Pogo" come to this feeling is not approached. The mini-size mobile printer spits in pictures from the Digi-Cam as a kind of instant picture. "But these are no Polaroids," says Cape. The people longed for the analog, authentic, for things to touch. "Just like the noise of an old gramophone record" - and have a successful comeback celebrated.