For the overwhelming majority of people, shooting on color film means dropping it off at a lab and waiting for it to be developed. But what if the film came with a weird box and some awful smelling chemicals so that you could develop it at home?
Film aficionado Willem Verbeeck picked up a roll of PolaChrome, Polaroid’s 35mm instant film, and now some 40 years out of date. It seems that Polaroid was trying to deliver the quality of shooting on color slide film but with the convenience of being able to achieve quick results.
PolaChrome is said to be Polaroid’s attempt at producing a 35mm version of Polavision, an “instant” color film stock that was designed for home movies. Launched in 1977, it proved to be a commercial failure and was discontinued after less than two years, largely because the results were simply too dark. I’m guessing that the tiny developing kits used in both of these stocks required the film sensitivity to be quite low, hence ISO 40.
As well as the developing box, PolaChrome required a mounting box — a lightbox with a tiny guillotine — so that you could slice up your film and project your photographs as slides.
Have you ever shot on PolaChrome? Let us know in the comments below.