jake messenger - lightbox - Filed under 'PX600'

August Break!

Today is the first of August, and the beginning of Susannah Conway's August Break! After a lack of posting, the plan is for one a day - at the very least one upload to Flickr a day and a blog digest.

This image is a dried old bit of tree in the forest, taken on some Impossible Project PX600 First Flush film.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring...

Posted by Jake Messenger

An Open Chrysanthemum by Nancy Stockdale Just over a year in the making, The Impossible Project's first new film is available to order! You don't need me to tell you that I find this very exciting news. On Monday there was a press conference at The Impossible Project's New York base on Broadway, excellently live-tweeted by @jesshibb, with a great coverage here by Sarah Gilbert. And here is a thorough summary of the event by Darcy Perkins. (Incidentally Sarah Gilbert also covered Polaroid's recent douchebaggery in the face of Impossible Project momentum excellently. Essential reading) The film looks very interesting - we know this because 40 lucky souls were picked to test out a couple of pre-production emulsions, and these results can be seen here at the Impossible Project site, and a selection was enlarged, framed and shown on the wall at the press event (see here in Anne Bowerman's Flickr). They look absolutely stunning. These images are the start of the Impossible Project's Collection. I now have a new ambition - to be up on that wall... Over on Flickr there is a group for the new PX 100 and PX 600 films. As well as being where the new work will start appearing, there are more shots by the 'beta testers' in there. Do please have a look! Ah yes, Flickr. I'm not going to link directly to the threads, but there seem to be a lot of negative people out there, with something bad (and sometimes bizarre) to say about the whole enterprise. Yes, the film is not cheap, but who thought it would be? It's a small operation, creating a new, very complex film pretty much from scratch. They have to pay wages, rents, power, chemicals, research etc etc. Unlike Fuji, who are the only other manufacturer of instant film, The Impossible Project isn't a huge organisation with decades of investment and a huge corporate machine behind it. My response was as follows:

I’m guessing that whatever the price of the film, it’s going to be 100% more existy than it would be if TIP weren’t around.

Some complainers don't like the look of it, the 'artistic' nature of it, I guess the fact that it's not a point-and-shoot film. Well firstly, they haven't used it yet. The people who have seem to say that while it takes a bit of getting used to, it's a lovely film with a unique look. I love the images it's producing (like Nancy's Chrysanthemum at the top of this piece), and can't wait to experiment with it. It's not as if its quirks and sensitivities are a secret. As ever, Sean Tubridy (@Tubes, a founder of Save Polaroid) puts it succinctly and eloquently of Twitter:

Yes, haters, the new Impossible instant film is a little sensitive. Not up to the challenge, chickens? Would you prefer nothing?

See a theme? No Impossible Project = no new film. You may not like the film, but at least you have a choice not to buy it. And maybe you will like the colour films due later this year, and maybe you will like the PX100 as the production matures (this is after all being billed as the "First Flush Edition"). Maybe you won't. Whatever, blah blah blah, you're boring me. What's important to me is to support the incredible enterprise which has produced a whole new film, to allow me new ways to take photographs, to force me to try to only take the pictures that matter (being aware of cost focusses the mind). The people behind and the people (like me) supporting The Impossible Project are passionate about photography, passionate to make this a success, excited about the magic that instant photography is imbued with. So I'll certainly be shooting with it, and I look forward to trying the blends as they grow and change (see the transcript for the tea analogy...). Fortunately for me (or unfortunately for my bank-balance) the Photographers' Gallery in London will be stocking the PX loveliness, and is just around the corner from where I work. I'm going to see if they have it in stock tomorrow. I'm excited. P.S. Since I started writing this, I ordered 5 packs of the film. I'm even more excited now.

Posted by Jake Messenger

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo.

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