April 1st marks the beginning of this year's Expolaroid, a month-long festival, founded in France in 2013 by a collection of artist and enthusiast that celebrates and further explores the usages of Polaroid and other instant-film camera techniques. The three-year-old festival will host over sixty Exhibitions, along with contests and workshops in France, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Canada. Expolaroid’s goal as a festival is not only to enjoy the unique artistry produced with the use of Polaroid, but it is to preserve what is now a fleeting medium of photography by increasing its presences within the arts.
Since 2008, when Polaroid filed for bankruptcy, instant film photography fanatics have struggled to preserve the manufacturing and production of the necessary film and items required for the use and maintenance of a Polaroid camera. Currently, there are still companies supplying the demand for instant-film, but without enough attraction, the medium can easily recede into extinction.
Polaroid and instant film photography are vastly outdated when compared to modern DSLRs and other products of exponential technological growth. Firstly, the nostalgic Polaroid generates a soft and unpredictable image that takes extended time in order to develop an image. Oppositionality, a digital camera is able to take photos at high rates that appear on a screen within an instant. Although it can be argued that a Polaroid demands a more professional level of compositional understanding. In order to obtain the desired photograph, the user needs to know each factor well enough before shooting with a Polaroid to avoid wasting a $3 piece of film. As with a digital camera, the photographer can simply use trial and error and remove the undesired photos free of charge. The mass appeal of the fading medium obviously isn’t derived from its level of technology but from the nostalgic and immensely unique feeling that comes with using a Polaroid.
It’s apparent that each medium of art enjoys its own advantages over others, but Expolaroid’s month-long dedication to instant film photography and Polaroids could be the biggest and possibly the last advocate for sustaining it as a medium of art. The festival’s larger exhibitions, which can be found here, are crucial to the existence of instant film photography. Expolaroid is not only creating better environments for an artist to communicate in, but it is furthering the reintroduction of instant film photography within the community.
