Really? As a consumer, I hate that approach with a passion. I see how it makes sense from a business-perspective, but I think people are "onto it" at this point.
Instant film is inherently kind of expensive in either case, isn't it?
Instant film is inherently kind of expensive in either case, isn't it?
Here is my reasoning:
1. I love Polaroid and really want the Impossible Project to succeed in the long term. 2. The film is already expensive so perhaps if they increase the number of potential users they will keep the camera cost down and maybe even lower the price of the film.
Ultimately, the film is so expensive that I see it as a sort of patronage instead of buying film. Otherwise it would feel gross.
However, Polaroid has never cost 10 cents (adjusted for inflation) and it's essentially impossible (no pun intended) for that to ever happen going forward.
What I can say as a medium format film photographer is that having the constraint of knowing each shot has a real cost absolutely forces me to become a much better photographer. You just make each shot count and you'll end up remembering why you took each shot.
You'll never end up with 250 shots of a house party with dozens of nearly identical shots ever again. You'll take one shot that captures a moment and then focus on living in that moment.
People ask me if I would ever switch to a D-SLR. I smile and inform them that actually I've already upgraded from digital. You'd have to pry my cameras out of my dead hands.
I upgraded from a heavy DSLR to an iPhone. Now I can take as many photos as I want without worrying about the weight or the cost. I can concentrate on composition without worrying about focus or aperture.
I find taking a long series of spontaneous shots is better for making memories than taking one very thoughtfully composed shot. Sometimes my unconscious combined with luck is a better photographer than I am.
Is this better than your approach? Is it worse?
Neither. It's all photography.
But you're right. Whatever brings you the most happiness. I wish that you'd tried shooting film before jumping straight to iPhone. I shoot tons of photos on my iPhone, but there's a galaxy of difference between Instagram and the shots I'm proud of.
For what it's worth, I was deeply skeptical of film to the point of actively derisive until I tried it. Seemed like cultist holdouts and then I had no choice but to acknowledge that I wasn't seeing the big picture.
Send me your address and I'll send you a camera to borrow and some film to try out.
Maybe there's a compromise point. Perhaps market a far cheaper ($.50/print) but slightly lower quality film alongside a professional, $3/print, higher quality film. That's the difference between this being adopted by the mass market and surviving long-term, versus being a short-lived boutique medium for wealthy artists only.
The appeal is novelty, nostalgia, simplicity, tactility, etc. It's in the same category as vinyl records.
My suggestion is that you consider how - for a lover of the format - $4 a shot is a cheap price to pay for something that realistically should no longer exist, and that every pack is a kind of artistic patronage... a tithe to a barely profitable entity run by a skeleton crew that rarely ever even meet the folks that appreciate their efforts.
It's a specialty item. Unless you lose your mind over banking fees and the price of artisanal chocolate in a boutique, you might be ignoring the bigger picture: no price is too great for something you love.
Shipping new hardware is expensive, risky and very hard... but shipping old hardware is just bonkers because there's no practical upside by any typical investment standard.
I'm actually surprised they can sell it that cheap, given that they don't have anything like the economy of scale that Polaroid had in its heyday.