#tbt / Magnificent Mistakes & Accidental Art

In late 2019, some version of the Polaroid corporation gave up the ghost and threw in the towel on manufacturing films for the Spectra line of cameras they stopped making in 2004. Why? It seems they could not make a reliable enough instant film in that format, with modern chemistries and available materials.

Basically, after resurrecting Polaroid from bankruptcy, they did not have all the original “stuff” and had to fill in the blanks on their own. Some of the products, including early film chemistries, and film materials for the Spectra line, were nowhere near as good as the originals. In the end, the new Polaroid could not reduce the high percentage of Spectra shots which jammed in the old cameras, or get the developer to spread evenly across the Spectra’s large rectangular image area, so they shut it down…

I’ve written a passionate tribute and farewell post with lots of photos, about the death of Polaroid Spectra films here, on my Cameras+Films blog.

Anyway, my “throwback Thursday” post today is three “fabulous fail” instant photos I took using a Spectra camera and the “new Polaroid” film, back in 2019, just before they stopped making it. All three jammed in the rollers, so I had to forcibly pull them out by hand. Once I realized they were not going to develop normally, I had a little fun squishing and pushing the developer around using fingertips and the back of a spoon, until it dried.

Hope you enjoyed these #fabfail instant photos!

Camera: Polaroid Spectra SE instant camera (vintage)
Film: Polaroid Spectra Color instant film (new at the time…)
Photographer: Russ Murray [aka “remages”]
Location: Stamford, Connecticut

See you tomorrow! 

// russ murray