COLOR THEORY

In a world where everything seems to move at a breakneck pace, Polaroid remains a constant, providing a tangible reminder of life's fleeting moments.

Everything comes down to science – from the tannins in an aged Rioja wine, the spurting of fireworks, to that perfectly candid snapshot. And when it comes to the latter, one name stands out above the rest: Polaroid. The brand has become synonymous with the marvels of instant photography. But, it wasn’t until the 1940s that its breakthrough innovation would be changing the status quo and democratize photography to a whole new frontier. Even with the advent of digital photography in the 2000s, Polaroid still manages to remain a pertinent means of documenting moments in an instant, pioneering a string of advancements over the decades. Their latest one; a single-color film with rich and saturated hues of blue, is the result of an „experimental fluke“ discovered by Brian Slaghuis, an in-house chemist. Unlike Polaroid’s Duochrome film, which has been marketed in various colorways ranging from munsell yellow to forest green and even carnation pink, the Reclaimed Blue 600 was a fortunate stumble that arose during Slaghuis’s quest to refine the color output of their instantly developing film. The addition of the unutterable chemical TBHQ (tertiary butylhydroquinone) found in their black and white film caused almost all colors in the spectrum to be muted out instead of enhanced, resulting in only eerie blue tones being left.

The serene yet almost surreal visual effect is the result of a chemical reaction previously unexplored by the company in which no color is actually added. This unique effect is achieved by using reclaimed film that would otherwise have been thrown away, allowing Polaroid to minimise production waste. Issued in a limited edition, Reclaimed Blue 600 film is suitable for Polaroid 600, Polaroid Now, Polaroid Now+ cameras and the Lab printer.

[Imagery]
PR
[Words]
Afra Ugurlu
April 26, 2023
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