Polaroid, the “Impossible” comeback – and why it still inspires me today

If you visit the O’Brien Media office, you’ll usually find at least one Polaroid camera lurking on a shelf or desk – and a little stack of instant prints tucked somewhere nearby. Over the years, that’s grown into a small collection of Polaroid cameras spanning from the 1970s right through to the present day. Each one tells its own story, and together they chart the rise, fall, and rebirth of one of my favourite formats.

My love of instant photography goes back to being 15 (and of photography in general before that) when instant photography captured my heart after I was given my first Polaroid: a grey Polaroid 600 One Shot with purple highlights (remember that Purple was EVERYWHERE in 1999 for some reason), as a birthday present.

That camera came everywhere with me. I’ve got Polaroids from New Year’s Eve 1999 rolling into 2000, and from summer days spent cycling out into the countryside, messing around with friends, and documenting that slightly chaotic, hopeful time of life. I even have Polaroids from my first business, launched back in 2001 – little chemical snapshots of a big personal leap.

So when the original Polaroid business started to struggle and instant film vanished from the shelves, it felt genuinely heartbreaking – like someone had pulled the plug on a whole way of seeing the world. This post is about how close we came to losing Polaroid forever, how The Impossible Project brought it back, and why that story still shapes how I think about creativity and business today.

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When Polaroid nearly disappeared

Polaroid was once the name in instant photography. For decades, it churned out cameras and films that gave you a physical print in minutes. At its peak, Polaroid was everywhere: families, holidays, parties, offices, studios – if there was a moment worth capturing, someone had probably pointed a chunky plastic camera at it.

But as digital photography took off, Polaroid struggled to adapt. Instant film went from mainstream to niche surprisingly quickly, and the company behind it eventually collapsed. Factory closures followed, licenses were sold, and the “Polaroid” name drifted away from film and into a strange mix of branded electronics.

From the outside, it looked like instant photography had simply lost the fight.

When finding Polaroid film went from easy… to almost impossible

Around the time I started my first business in 2001, the change was already becoming painfully obvious.

Before that, buying Polaroid film was simple. You could walk into Boots, head over to the photo section, and pick up a pack of 600 film for around £10. It was a casual purchase – like buying a roll of 35mm. You never really thought it wouldn’t be there.

Then, gradually:

Film started disappearing from the big high-street shelves.
You’d find the odd pack in more specialist photo shops instead.
Prices jumped – suddenly a pack that used to be about £10 was more like £15 to £25.

You could feel the format slipping away in slow motion. The cameras still worked, the desire to shoot was still there, but the film became harder and harder to find – and more expensive when you did.

Eventually, there came a point where you just couldn’t get it anymore. No more fresh Polaroid film, whether on the high street or from niche retailers. For those of us with boxes of old cameras and albums full of instant prints, it felt like a chapter had quietly closed.

And for a while, that really did seem to be the end.

The “Impossible” idea that brought Polaroid back

At almost the exact moment Polaroid was winding down its instant film operations, a small group of people had a different idea.

What if Polaroid film didn’t have to die at all?

In 2008, a team led by Austrian entrepreneur Florian “Doc” Kaps, along with former Polaroid employees and partners, stepped in. They took over part of Polaroid’s old film factory in Enschede in the Netherlands, bought the remaining production machinery, and launched something new: The Impossible Project.

They didn’t have the original chemistry formulas, so they had to reinvent instant film almost from scratch. In 2010, they released their first new films compatible with vintage Polaroid cameras. Early on, the results were unpredictable – colours shifted, contrast fluctuated, and each pack had its quirks – but they worked. For the first time in years, you could put fresh film into cameras that had been gathering dust.

It was a bold, slightly mad idea:

Save an “obsolete” format the original company had given up on.
Bring a factory back to life with new chemistry and new processes.
Sell to a global community of people who refused to let instant film go.

That stubborn belief – that instant photography was worth saving – turned out to be the spark Polaroid needed.

From The Impossible Project to Polaroid (again)

Over time, The Impossible Project and the Polaroid brand grew closer and closer.

Eventually, the Polaroid name and intellectual property were brought under the same umbrella as the instant film operation in the Netherlands. The Impossible Project rebranded to Polaroid Originals, and started releasing new cameras like the OneStep 2 – modern instant cameras that nodded to the classic design while using newly developed film.

A few years later, they went one step further and simplified everything down to a single word again: Polaroid.

Now, when you buy Polaroid film or a new Polaroid camera, you’re buying from that revived, reimagined company – one that traces its roots back to The Impossible Project and that old Dutch factory that refused to go dark.

Today, Polaroid makes:

Film for classic 600 and SX-70 cameras
i-Type film for newer models
A whole family of modern instant cameras

The cameras in my own collection – from the boxy 1970s models, through my beloved 600 One Shot, right up to current generation cameras – all have a new lease of life thanks to that. Cameras that were once destined for the bin or the display shelf can shoot again.

My life in little squares of chemistry

For me, Polaroid isn’t just a clever business story – it’s deeply personal.

That Polaroid 600 One Shot I got at 15 captured so many “firsts”:

New Year 2000 – a stack of slightly overexposed shots of friends, fireworks, dodgy party hats, and an almost tangible sense that “the future” was arriving.
Endless summer rides – bikes leaning against gates, friends pulling faces, fields turning gold in the evening light. No filters, no retakes, just whatever came out of the camera.
My first business in 2001 – I used that same camera to document early projects, first bits of kit, and the tiny, slightly chaotic workspace where it all started.

As film got harder to find in the 2000s, every remaining pack felt more precious. You stopped firing off shots casually and started thinking, Is this moment worth one of my last frames? It was frustrating at times, but it also made each image more intentional.

Today, we’ve gone a step further and made Polaroid part of O’Brien Media’s own story again. In the post-COVID years – as the business reshaped itself, found its footing, and grew into the version of O’Brien Media we are now – we started keeping dedicated albums of Polaroid photos in the office. Those albums quietly chart our own “rebirth” and growth after COVID, right up to the present day.

They show new premises, new projects, quick snaps from launch days, cans of Coke and Pepsi on messy desks, and the faces of the people who’ve been part of the journey. Even though we’ve shrunk down to a smaller team, those little squares are a reminder that we’re still doing amazing things together – focused, nimble, and very much alive as a business.

What I love about all of those photos is how grounded they are. You can’t just swipe them away. They yellow, they fade a bit, they curl at the corners – but they’re still there, proof that something happened and that you were there when it did.

What Polaroid’s revival says about creativity and business

The Polaroid / Impossible Project story feels surprisingly close to home when you run a small digital agency.

A few lessons that really resonate with me:

1. Nostalgia is powerful – but it’s not enough on its own

People didn’t just want Polaroid back because they were nostalgic. They wanted it back because it offers a different experience of photography: the anticipation, the physical print, the imperfections.

At O’Brien Media, we see something similar when businesses come to us wanting a “classic” or “retro” feel. The design can nod to the past, but the underlying website still has to be fast, secure, accessible, and easy to use today. The Impossible Project didn’t just remake old film; they reimagined it for modern reality.

If you visit the O’Brien Media office, you’ll usually find at least one Polaroid camera lurking on a shelf or desk – and a little stack of instant prints tucked Share on X

2. Constraints can be creatively liberating

With instant film, you’ve only got so many shots in a pack. Each one costs money. There’s no delete key.

That forces you to slow down and think: is this worth capturing? In a funny way, that’s similar to good web design and content strategy. You shouldn’t throw everything onto a page just because you can. You make choices. You accept constraints – accessibility, performance, clarity – and that’s where the best work often comes from.

3. A small, focused team can keep something special alive

The original Polaroid corporation was a giant. The group that saved instant film was tiny by comparison – but they were focused, passionate, and close to their community.

As a small team in Swindon working with businesses across the UK, that’s the space we live in every day. We’re not trying to be all things to all people; we’re trying to be very good partners to the people who choose to work with us. The Impossible Project didn’t have the scale of the old Polaroid, but they had something just as valuable: belief, and a willingness to do the hard, unglamorous work of making chemistry behave.

Why this still matters in a digital-first world

It might seem strange for someone who spends their days building websites, portals, and digital tools to care this much about a decades-old camera system that spits out physical prints.

But for me, Polaroid represents:

Slowness in a good way – you don’t see the result instantly, and you can’t fix it in post.
Tangible results – you get something you can hold, pin to a wall, or tuck inside a notebook.
Resilience – the brand and the format should have disappeared, but they didn’t, because people cared enough to keep them going.

Those are values we try to bring into O’Brien Media too: being thoughtful, making things that last, and sticking with ideas we believe in even when they’re not the obvious or easy option.

I still shoot Polaroid today. Sometimes it’s just for me, sometimes it’s to document little behind-the-scenes moments in the business. Every time I watch an image appear on that familiar square frame – often on a camera older than I am – I’m reminded that technology doesn’t have to be disposable, and that “old” ideas can have a very bright future when the right people pick them up.

And if you’ve got an old Polaroid camera in a drawer somewhere, consider this your sign: dust it off, grab a fresh pack of film from the revived Polaroid, and see what stories you can capture – one impossible little square at a time.