The Lost Last 'Long View'

Introduction: For a number of years, Jim Hughes, one of the best writers on photography around, wrote a well received and always-eagerly-awaited regular column for the newer iteration of Camera Arts magazine called "The Long View." (Jim was also the founding editor of the original Camera Arts, circa 1980–1983). When the newer Camera Arts ceased publication, Jim's last column got caught suspended in the production pipeline, and never saw the light of print. Here for your reading pleasure, and for the first time, is the long-lost last Jim Hughes Camera Arts column. It's called "Instant Classics."

Jim is also former editor of 35MM Photography, Camera 35, and the Photography Annual, and the author of  W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance, Ernst Haas in Black and White, and The Birth of a Century: Early Color Photographs of America. He and his wife Evelyn, after 42 years in the same Brooklyn brownstone, last July moved permanently to the small town in Maine where they have summered for many years. —Mike

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Instant Classics

By Jim Hughes

There was something vaguely familiar about the face zeroing in on me from the slick magazine cover in front of me. Rashida Jones was depicted holding a Polaroid SX-70 to her hip and a circled thumb and forefinger to her eye as if to form a viewfinder. "Quincy Jones' Daughter Shoots from the Hip," the blurb announced. Inside were more pictures of Rashida flashing us looking at her. The cameras in her hands, a different one for each image, were all throwbacks: another Polaroid, a Kodak Instamatic, even a wallet-sized Disc camera (hailed as "revolutionary" when it was introduced in 1982). It was then that I recognized not the name, but the face: she is the very image of her mother, iconic actress Peggy Lipton, star of the hip '60s television series "The Mod Squad," a show I watched with some regularity.

The significance of the obsolete cameras finally struck me. All once represented cutting edge breakthroughs. Now they are conversation pieces. Gestures to the past, as it were. In their moment, however, they were wondrous to behold.

I remember my excitement when the SX-70 was introduced in 1972 to such great fanfare (it even made the cover of Time). A folding single lens reflex that could be slung flat under a shoulder or snugged into a purse or a coat pocket, this elegantly designed camera spit out 3.5-inch square, one-of-a-kind, full-color prints that developed themselves as we watched. They had both presence and dimension.

Aimed at providing instant gratification to the mass amateur market, the SX-70 soon was quickly adopted by a parallel universe of so called fine-artists: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Lucas Samaras, even Walker Evans and André Kertész, took to this newest form of instant photography like ducks to water. I, too, was seduced; for an extended period in the 1970s I put aside my sharper-than-life 35mm Kodachrome in favor of the soft palette of the enormously malleable SX-70 print film. I carried the ingeniously designed camera everywhere, along with a bag full of flashbars, some bamboo shish kebab skewers to manipulate the plastic-encapsulated emulsion when inspiration struck, and a small plug-in warming plate to enhance and extend the film’s remarkable workability.

Dr. Edwin Land was already a legend in the photography business. Instant photography was his brainchild, literally—his daughter was said to have asked why she couldn't see a picture right after he snapped it, so the inventor of Polarized lenses went on to devise the Land camera for instant photography, which was introduced in 1948. Over the subsequent years, a full line of remarkable black-and-white cameras and film ensued—progressing from simple to professional. Some versions also provided, in addition to true contact prints, excellent negatives from which to make traditional enlargements in the darkroom. Each film had its own unique properties. Ansel Adams was a fan, and Dr. Land became a patron, sponsoring, among other projects, an Adams book on what became known as Polaroid Land Photography.

I knew one man, Tom Maloney, publisher of U. S. Camera—he gave me my first job in photographic publishing—who very early on believed in Land when few others did, and invested, I was told, $10,000, a large sum for the time. Years passed. Stocks split. Again and again. By the 1980s, my last personal contact with this man, he had become a millionaire many times over, due in large measure to Polaroid’s performance....

Dr. Land brought more than technical genius to the table. He had the kind of charisma that held in thrall not only the small teams of sharply-focused visionaries he employed on his various projects, but the general public as well. I traveled to Cambridge in the late 1970s and sat among an audience of professional skeptics (as we editors, writers and critics liked to call ourselves) as Land personally introduced a revolutionary system of instant peel-apart color that produced life-sized prints of astonishing depth and clarity. As with most Land projects, this one began as a technical tour de force: a camera the size of a small room which was capable of making one-to-one, virtually exact reproductions of museum paintings—which is precisely what he demonstrated that day. We were mesmerized by not only the mammoth 20x24 camera system, but by the man himself. He made the mundane sound miraculous, high-tech facts and figures fascinating. Inspiring was the word that came to mind. I remember thinking that if this man wants to run for President, I'll vote for him.

Since I prefer small cameras, my only direct experience with the 20x24 was in 1982 when, as editor of the original Camera Arts magazine, I commissioned a story on the photographer Sandi Fellman, and spent a day in her studio watching Polaroid's camera operator (and artist in his own right) John Reuter turn her sophisticated vision into photographic reality. It was hard, grueling work for all concerned. Fellman's model had to hold poses for hours on end, and various parts of her body kept going numb.

It was there that I learned that the original 800-pound mahogany and steel gorilla had been reduced to 200 pounds by the judicious use of "lighter" materials such as titanium and carbon filament. The 600mm Fujinon lens that allowed 1:1 fidelity with a 48-inch bellows draw offered a depth of field of something like eight inches! No wonder the trolley-wheeled camera was limited to studio work by the likes of Chuck Close and William Wegman, who would rent blocks of time with the camera and its expert operators at a few select locations.

Land never intentionally aimed his inventions at artists. He had the general public, the mass market, in mind, although he might tackle a difficult technological challenge simply for the sense of accomplishment its inevitably elegant solution might provide. But in the end, it was the art world that most appreciated his work. Those who were manipulating SX-70s or doing delicate emulsion transfers with 4x5 or 8x10 film or mastering the intricacies of the unique 20x24 proved to be the company's core support after the digital revolution began to take the edge off "traditional" instant photography. But artists do not a viable market make. At best, they are a niche—and a small one, at that.

After Land’s death in 1991, Polaroid seemed to become not only leaderless, but rudderless. Ten years later, having successfully, and expensively, fought off in the courts a strong Kodak challenge, Polaroid declared bankruptcy. To make a long, sad story a little shorter, in February, 2008, new owners of the brand announced that, having already stopped making instant cameras, remaining materials-manufacturing plants would be closed and all film and print materials would cease manufacture by early the following year. They left open the possibility of licensing "recipes" to others, but for all intents and purposes the Polaroid brand we had come to know and love was dead, although the name might continue to appear on some digital cameras and flat-screen TVs. [Update: Fujifilm still makes some instant materials that fit old Polaroid cameras and backs, and has its own new line of "Instax" film and cameras. And one European company—having bought a closed Polaroid factory in Holland, lock, stock and barrel—seems devoted to keeping the analog-instant flame alive; a check of its website reveals that the much appreciated SX-70 Blend packs, called SX-70 TZ, are again available from Hungary, as are limited amounts of some b&w pack and 4x5 positive/negative materials.]

The history of photography is littered with innovations that shone brightly for varying lengths of time only to ultimately dim and disappear, occasionally to be resurrected by diehard aficionados otherwise known as alternative process fanatics. (For a thorough and entertaining guide to said processes, see Christopher James's The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes.)

Daguerreotypes come to mind. As do tintypes and ambrotypes. And wet plate collodions. Cyanotypes. And stereograms. And let’s not forget those shiny metallic Cibachromes. Or the magnificent Dye Transfer process. Not to mention Autochromes—and oh yes, Anscochromes and Agfachromes and, most recently, my Kodachromes, for which only a single processor, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, remains. With new Kodachrome stock no longer being produced by Kodak, Dwayne's says it will shut down its K-14 line by the end of this year. A sad development indeed.

My own stockpile dwindles. Not just of my favored 35mm Kodachrome slide film, but my preferred printing media as well. I like dye-sublimation because, along with Kodachrome, it actually matches the way I see, and the way I've always wanted my prints to look. Both possess a kind of depth and clarity I can only describe as "liquid." A little over a decade ago, when it was new to the market, my printer of choice was the Alps, made in Japan and distributed worldwide. But it didn't last. A mass market never developed. As digital has killed film, inkjet has kicked dye-sub's butt. A few years ago, the Alps printer line was discontinued. Now supplies, which are of course machine-specific, have been discontinued as well. An internet user-group at Yahoo! sprung up just so we Alps-lovers have a way to support each other and make do. Rumors of some enterprising company or other making new ribbons, new paper, new printers, spring up with some regularity. But so far, to no avail. In the meantime, we scrounge and save and pray our now-antique machines keep pumping out wonderful prints.

Pigeon Roosting in the Shadow of a Tree, Brooklyn House of Detention, Atlantic Avenue, 2008, Brooklyn, New York. Another sort of jailbird, perhaps? Film: 120 Fuji Velvia 50, rated at 100. Camera: Zeiss Super Ikonta B 6x6 folder (circa 1950). Photograph © 2008 by Jim Hughes.

Clearly, traditional ways, and some non-traditional ones as well, are fast disappearing. Film shooting has become, I fear, the latest alternative process. But hope springs eternal. A couple years ago, I learned that Fuji has revived Velvia 50 transparency film. And unlike Kodachrome, it is available in 120 as well as 35mm, and of course can be processed by labs that do E-6 (which number itself is shrinking mightily, but Dwayne’s remains eminently reliable, if you don't mind putting your faith in the U.S. Postal Service). Although I stopped shooting the 120 format years ago when Kodak discontinued 120 Kodachrome, I dug up my old but still mint Zeiss Super Ikonta B with its Zeiss ƒ/2.8 Tessar-Opton, freed up its sluggish shutter with a few drops of rubber cement thinner, and proceeded to try a roll, reinventing myself in the process. There has always been something comforting, I must admit, about waiting for film to arrive back from the lab to remind you of where you've been, what you've seen and, more importantly, what you've felt. An image from that roll is reproduced above. Others have followed.

The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same.

Jim

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John Reuter and Jennifer Trausch demonstrate the 20x24 Polaroid

Featured Comment by mitch cohen: "I saw a video of the 20x24 Polaroid in action recently and thought you might like to share it with the rest of your readers. The link to the website is http://20x24studio.com/. About three-fourths of the way down the page is a fairly long video that describes every aspect of the camera and how it is used, followed by a 'shoot' (actually a shot) using the camera."

Comments

[John Camp]

What I miss most is the 35mm Polaroid color slides with the little developing machine -- not so much for art work, but for "right now" slides. Everything you needed (except the machine itself) came in the film box. People in academia loved the things, because you could shoot, say, a photograph of a series of reasonably high-resolution paintings or photographs, and an hour later, be projecting them in a classroom. With the best consumer digital projectors, the images look like they're being projected through a fish tank, compared to old slide film. (I know, there are ways to convert digital to 35mm slides, or you can just go ahead and shoot slide film, but those methods are not "right now.")

And, I liked the quality of the Polaroid slides. They were a little weird, in terms of color, but interesting.

[Dr. Nick]

Interesting that the subset of people who would walk around with bamboo skewers and hot plates in order to manipulate images, are generally not interested in the far greater, and easier, manipulation opportunities that digital provides. There must be something about the physical process that attracts them, as an SX-70 present is probably not that hard to make and adjust in say, Lightroom.

[John Roias]

It is uncanny that you should bring this up as I still have my Polaroid slide making machine! I did not experiment with the instant slides long enough because my first love was Velvia, and I found them expensive. You got so little- about 12 in a pack versus 36 in a roll of slide films. However, it had wonderful grainy, coarse properties which benefitted moody looking images. And the thrill and anticipation of making your own slides on the same day they were taken was indescribable. I saved only two examples: http://johnroias.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Landscape-Impressions/6106943_s6ys4/15 --the image is called "Haunting landscape" replete with its own pink sun! (colour shift which I really like!) and http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40811
The colours shifted and created these weird bands of triple colours. If I was to use them today, I would immediately weed out the bad ones and digitize the good ones. But who knows, maybe the structure was never intended to be scanned and the bands I see are it's inherent structure. Sigh, time marches on.

JMR

[Mike Johnston]

"Interesting that the subset of people who would walk around with bamboo skewers and hot plates in order to manipulate images, are generally not interested in the far greater, and easier, manipulation opportunities that digital provides."

Where did Jim say he was not interested in digital? Since when does being interested in film mean you're not interested in digital? I'm interested in both.

Mike

[Ken Tanaka]

Thanks for this piece, Jim. I own several "obsolete" cameras which do not realize that they're dead and give me much enjoyment (and top performance) whenever I (admittedly infrequently) use them. There's never a clinically logical reason for me to use a Rolleiflex, a Leica MP, or an Olympus Pen FT whatsoever. But there's often no logical reason for me to take pictures at all, so the idiocy doesn't bother me. I still enjoy the creativity and craftsmanship that went into creating these tools.

Regarding Polaroid's SX-70, Polaroid hired Charles and Ray Eames to produce a promotional/informational film to introduce the camera to dealers and distributors. It became a true classic in its own right. It's freely viewable thanks to YouTube and definitely worth 11 minutes. Look at how the Eames's take you through the camera's concept, design, and operation so smoothly. They were a very design talented team. (Filmmaking was a sideline for them.)

My own perspective is to mainly celebrate development rather than to mourn obsolescence. Whenever I catch myself mourning bygone tools and techniques I generally discover, upon closer introspection, that my nostalgia is actually centered on broader memories of bygone times.

[Mike Nelson Pedde]

There are a lot of memories there... I used to sell the SX-70 in the Camera department of a department store back in the 70s, along with the Kodak X-15, 110 pocket cameras and the like. Kodak had the 'flash cubes' and the SX-70 had the strips of flash bulbs that fit into a socket at the top. What I remember most of Polaroid at that time wasn't the slide maker, but the slide printer. I could take a 35mm slide, put it in the machine and a few minutes later pull off the back of a small Polaroid print. The colours were terrible, but it WAS instantaneous!

Mike.

[Semilog]

A digital simulation of a manipulated SX-70 photograph is not different in kind than a Kodachrome slide of the windows in Ste. Chappelle. It's not without utility, but as they say, the map is not the territory.

[Josh]

Bamboo skewers vs. digital manipulation - certainly one who loves to manipulate will enjoy the possibilities of photoshop. The charm here, to me at least, is that the polaroid you're manipulating is a unique physical object, a canvas without "undo". A combination of photography and painting. Certainly could be emulated in photoshop - have a look at www.poladroid.net - but that's not the point. The fun, and restrictions imposed by the material and the creative reaction to it are all as important.

[Jay Moynihan]

Very nice piece.

"...one European company—having bought a closed Polaroid factory in Holland, lock, stock and barrel—seems devoted to keeping the analog-instant flame alive; a check of its website reveals that the much appreciated SX-70 Blend packs, called SX-70 TZ..."

I am one of those who formerly manipulated SX-70 film. can this new version be manipulated, does anyone know?

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

I have several boxes of 10 year old Type 55 film and wish I could find the damn 545 holder to shoot them with. It would be really sweet if someone would start making the 4x5 and 8x10 color film again, I just loved doing those transfers....

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

On the Polapremium website mentioned in the post, a box of type 55 is yours for $243 USD. ooops.

[John Brewton]

I had an SX-70 in the 1970's. I still have most of the pictures I took with it. The color has held up well and I think today that fact surprises me especially when I remember my first inkjet prints which I sent my mother. She put them on the mantle and in less than a year they had faded to nothingness.

[Adam Maas]

For a large number of the Polaroid fanatics, the process is as much a part of the attraction as the results. While it's quite possible to duplicate the results digitally (Polaroid presets abound), the experience of shooting and manipulating the print is extremely different.

Personally I'm not a Polaroid shooter, but being a film shooter who prefers to work with traditional B&W films I quite thoroughly understand where the Polaroid shooters are coming from. The process itself is as important as the results, possibly more.

[Steve Rosenblum]

I loved those Polaroid cameras, if for no other reason that they seemed to my child's eye to be a kind of miraculous miniature Rube Goldberg machine--a camera and darkroom rolled into one compact pocketable device that collapsed flat and could fit in your coat pocket. The mechanical/physical aspect of it contributed to the sense of magic.

I've thought of Doctor Land this year as I have contemplated whether or not Apple would be able to thrive, or even survive as an innovative company without Steve Jobs who seems to be to be a kind of Land doppelganger. It seems to me that some important ways Polaroid was the Apple of its day.

[Michel]

One element often neglected about Polaroid is the uniqueness of the final product. This bridges a gap between photography and painting. Why didn't I get myself a Philips 8x10 with Polaroid back and processor when it was available? LF photography inevitably leads to a meditative approach, only enhanced by the singularity of the print. We will probably never see this again in photography.

[misha]

I think an important distinction is that these other products were fads. The digital revolution is equivalent to the Industrial Revolution, and it's just not happening in photography alone.

[Sal Santamaura]

Mike, it's great you were able to post that. Jim's writing was always the high point of each Camera Arts issue (last incarnation), even more so in its final years.

Best wishes to Jim on his permanent Maine relocation. I hope you can get him to contribute articles here once in a while.

[John Squillace]

Good news for all SX-70 fans! The European company Jim Hughes alluded to, Impossible B.V. (website: www.theimpossibleproject.com), has reinvented and simplified the Polaroid integral film manufacturing process, and will be introducing 600-ISO B&W integral film next month(!), and color film later in the year. Can be used as-is in all the Pronto and 600-series Polaroid cameras, and with a 2-stop ND filter in all the folding-style SX-70 cameras. Yay!!!

[Herman Krieger]

Since going back to using a Super Ikonta B, I've been asked If my retro mood will take me as far back as daguerreotypes, and to remember that mercury vapor makes photographers mad as hatters.

I replied, yes, I can then make quick silver prints.

[robert e]

While the end product may look good and be useful, simulating the look of plastic media via software omits much or all of the experience, which sometimes can be for the better, and sometimes can miss the point entirely.

The thing about SX70 manipulation is that it was done in the moment, in context--it was just as much a part of the fleeting experience as it was a product of it. To some extent, that's part of the magic of analog instant photography in general.

@Ed Kirkpatrick: used 545 holders these days are plentiful and dirt cheap. At this moment, KEH.com has one in Ex condition for $9.

[Darrell Marquette]

Thanks to Jim for mentioning the new Fuji instant cameras. They look interesting.

Also, I agree with Mike's comment yesterday about film vs. digital. Why do we have to choose between them? We should be able to have both. I use both all the time. Unfortunately, I am down to just a few rolls of Kodachrome in the fridge. My dad was a professional photographer and his favorite 35mm film was Kodachrome so I have to use my remaining supply carefully.

[Mike Johnston]

Herman,
*groan*....

Mike

[Milan Mitrovic]

On the Polapremium website mentioned in the post, a box of type 55 is yours for $243 USD. ooops.
Posted by: Ed Kirkpatrick | Saturday, 16 January 2010 at 07:19 AM

Check out http://www.poladroid.net/download.html if you want a free digital version of the Polaroid process. It allows for shaking and ending the process early. You'll have to find digital shish kebob skewers and hot plates on your own.

[Kevin Mayo]

More Jim Hughes commentary would be great

[Rod S.]

Mike, thank you for publishing Jim's article, which I enjoyed reading. I found Jim's personal perspective on Dr Edwin Land particularly interesting; it builds on the appreciation of the man that I've gained recently through TOP.

In an interview with Jim Hughes published on John Paul Caponigro's website, Jim says that his purpose with Camera Arts was "to bring together readers who become a community and then service them as a community to create a dialogue so that through pictures, through letters, through the articles, they could all be talking to each other." Jim's goal seems to match what you are achieving with TOP, and perhaps he might, therefore, provide further contributions to TOP towards that end.

At the end of that interview, Jim said "I think photography is one of the few arts that comes out of a life being lived", which is a thought worth reflecting on, I think.

Regards, Rod.

[David Boyce]

"It's not without utility, but as they say, the map is not the territory."

This is what I like about this site, in a discussion about a post some one can manage to reference Alfred Korzybski and the theory of General Semantics.

That said, I miss SX70 film. I hope they can recreate it and not just the 600 series style film. Can I hope for type 55, probably not .......

[Bill Bresler]

Thanks so much for posting Jim's column. I started reading Camera 35 in the 1970s while still in high school, so we go back a long way. To Jay M... I've shot 2 packs of that TZ film. You can manipulate it like Time Zero SX-70, but the colors are odd. Skin tones can be acceptable but blue skies were rendered a bright green. With shipping, I recall spending $70 for 2 packs.

[John Robison]

There is another point about manipulation vs photoshop simulation. With Polaroids the technology is mostly invisible. You don't see or have to be involved with or understand the high level of engineering to produce that little 3X3 inch miracle in your hand. You need nothing more high tech than a stick. On the other hand to do something similar with digital, similar but not the same, I would assume you would need a computer and software and the considerable skill and practice to carry it off.

[Jim Hughes]

Thanks to all for the comments, and especially for fleshing out my update on newly available -- or unavailable, as the case may be -- "Polaroid" materials. - Jim

[chris]

The best Polaroid-type camera ever was made by Kodak. We had one and it produced wonderful bright, clear photos. It is too bad there was the lawsuit between Polaroid and Kodak which forced Kodak to stop making them and the film for them. As a result, Kodak gave us a Disc camera (now, that was a dud!).

[Mike Reyburn]

I still enjoy taking pictures of my grandkids with my old Polaroid 195 camera using the Fuji B&W 3000 film. The kids get a kick out of seeing their image in 30 seconds and that they can take it with them!