Have you noticed that bright multi-coloured cardboard sleeve stuck on the wall of the dark room, in the corner just above the collection of instant photos? That’s the packaging from the first colour film made by the Impossible Project. (See related PhotoSoc post)

When Polaroid announced in 2008 that it would stop making films, fans mourned the end of long love affaires with their iconic instants. Many photographers searched high and low for the last remaining batches and bought up as many boxes as they could afford. This film hoarding behaviour drove up the prices; second-hand and even severely out-dated films were gradually changing hands for way more money than sense on eBay. With hindsight, it was a better financial investment than gold!

But blowing all their money on films was not enough – they were simply not ready to let it go! There were campaigns and petitions to ‘Save Polaroid’ at the time, with similar discussions and RIP messages posted in Flickr groups, mixed with rumours of a new project that might just save the day…

Entered The Impossible Project which took over an ex-Polaroid factory in Enschede in the Netherlands, bought some ex-Polaroid machinery, employed 10 ex-Polaroid staff and set out to reinvent a new generation of instant films for legacy Polaroid cameras. From then on, the films that can feed those millions of existing cameras went from global mass-produced products, to one down-sized factory serving a niche cult market.

In October, I visited this factory in the Netherlands and made some interviews, which were recently published on the Film Photography Project website. I spoke to Henk Minnen, Project Engineer, about up-coming new films, including 10×8 large format films currently in development, and interviewed one of the founders of the Impossible Project, André Bosman.

Listen to an edited version of the interviews

Find out more about the factory visit in my future post…

Rule of Thirds Example

Perhaps the most well known principle of photographic composition is the “Rule of Thirds”. It is one of the most basic tools that can be used to create balanced and visually appealing shots. However before we get into it I must warn you that rules are meant to be broken and ignoring this one doesn’t mean that your pictures will necessarily be unbalanced or uninteresting. In fact, the opposite can often be true!
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Thanks to everyone that came last week to our photography tutorial! For everyone that didn’t make it we will be holding another one this coming Friday (29th) at lunch time (1pm) in meeting room 3 in the Union. To register for the tutorial please signup after the break.

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We are fortunate enough to have a well stocked, fully functional, all rounded darkroom here at Imperial. The darkroom contains all the chemicals, and equipment needed for processing b/w film and prints as well as colour and slide film developing/scanning. For our digital camera users we have a colour calibrated 24 inch monitor and computer with Photoshop CS2 for image editing.

If you would like to use any of these facilities you can purchase a darkroom card which will grant you access to the darkroom located in the West wing basement of Beit quad. It is in here where you will be learning colour developing, slide film printing, cross processing, alternative processes, lith printing, b/w printing and spend whole weekends forgetting what time it is! But lets not get ahead of ourselves, first we need to learn the basics before we can start using the darkroom so you will be required to take a brief orientation in which you will find out where everything goes and how to develop a roll of b/w film. If you have some b/w film laying around please bring it in, as we can use this to demonstrate the process (free developing!) If you are interested in getting a darkroom card please go online and buy the darkroom membership (£10). You can sign up to an induction by using the form on our website. We will run orientations every day over the next week between 1 and 1.45 and will meet in the darkroom (map).

Please note, you will have to become a member of photosoc first (you can find that on the union site too) which is an additional £5 but hey, free chemicals (unlimited) and discounted film prices equals unlimited the opportunity to learn new skills and actually put them into use for free! Wow now there’s a good deal!

Hope to see you there,

Sam – Darkroom Manager

Hello and welcome to another year of Photosoc. It was great to see so many new and familiar faces at Freshers’ Fair and we hope to see you again at some of our events this year. More on that in a minute, first in case any of you didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone at our stall here is a little introduction to Photosoc and what we do:

Founded in 1905, we are the only photographic society in Imperial and one of the biggest in London. We cater to all types of photographers, from complete beginners to the more advanced of you, and as well as holding regular photo walks around London (and further afield) we organise workshops and tutorials on different aspects of photography. Having a fully functioning darkroom means that we have some avid film users who are more than willing to pass on their craft as well as experiment with the weird and wonderful world of film photography.

So please do join us on the many events we have lined up for you all this year and we do hope you will enjoy it as much as we will!

I’m sure most of you will be following the election campaign at the moment since its pretty hard to get away from! Anyway I thought I would fill you in on what the three main parties are promising in regard to photographers rights. Here is what they say in no particular order:
(taken from Amateur Photographer)
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I’m sure most of you will have heard of Adobe Photoshop, since it is the standard for all photo editing tools (we have a legal copy of CS3 in the darkroom), and I’m sure some of you will be aware that a new version of Photoshop has recently been announced: CS5.

The new version brings lots of very cool new features to the already jam packed Photoshop line, including greater HDR support, an improved camera raw, lens correction, refined edge selection and the jaw dropping content aware fill. If you haven’t already seen this video then its a must:
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Life Through The Lens: Debauchery, Lenses & Vodka
By Tristan Brown

It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night. People of all ages are out around the town. Drinkers are down in the pubs, clubbers out in the clubs, couples were… Well they were out doing whatever it is couples do. Stepping out of the tube station, I am greeted by a group of middle-aged ladies all dressed up raring to go on the prowl. “Hey You!” they shout at me; their tights are a little worse for wear, and their make up is a little shoddy but I’m a forgiving guy, so I greet them anyway. They aren’t particularly attractive and I swear the blonde has some rather excessive hair down her cleavage.

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