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Fans Seek to Resurrect Polaroid Film

Group buys equipment from shuttered plant, seeks to reinvent recipe

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted May 26, 2009 8:28 AM CDT

(Newser) – A determined band of entrepreneurs, scientists, and lovers of retro photography is doing its best to bring Polaroid film back from the dead, the New York Times reports. The group managed to buy the company’s old equipment just before it was dumped and is now attempting to reinvent the chemicals Polaroid once produced in plants dismantled after production ceased last year.

The group, leasing an abandoned Polaroid plant in Holland, estimates that there are still a billion Polaroid instant cameras in the world and is gambling that enough fans of the retro look exist to make the effort worthwhile despite the rise of digital photography. “If everyone runs in one direction, it creates a niche market in the other,” one entrepreneur said.

[Images (2)]

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Joe Howansky, 23, poses with boxes of Polaroid in his home in Queens, NY, in a 2008 photo. Howansky stocked up before production stopped. (AP Photo)

Actor Alan Cumming's artwork using Polaroid photography is seen at a 2003 celebrity art auction in New York. (Getty Images)

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This project is about building a very interesting business to last for at least another decade. It is about the importance of analog aspects in a more and more digital world. - Florian Kaps, the Austrian entrepreneur behind the effort

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Fans Seek to Resurrect Polaroid Film