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Photo by Lia Sáile

The Read-out panel

One of the huge advantages of our analog project is that also our working tools are very analog. Being around 40 years old, the old Polaroid film production machinery is just as analog as we and our products are.

In general there is no complicated computer programming needed (although there were some digital adjustments made in the past) in order to keep all machines up and running. Whenever any problem occurs, the corresponding light flashes up on the read-out panel. We then know where to find the problem to repair or to replace an old and tired feature of the machine – and zack! everything is up and running again.

8 Factory Shots will present one photo a week for eight weeks.

Photo by Lia Sáile

The Film Production Machine

On the top floor of Building North is the heart of Impossible film production – the production hall. There are 9 giant production machines located as well as several pod filling machines, 1 big slitter, the reactors, 2 molding machines and many additional tools.

This area is the loudest part of the factory and the machines can be heard and felt throughout the entire building like heavy heartbeats.

This photo shows only one part of the production machine; it is the rotating part with several stations in wich different adjustments (folding, glue, filmcode etc.) are made to package our film into the nice inner box.

8 Factory Shots will present one photo a week for eight weeks.

Photo by Lia Sáile

The Reactor

This image shows our reactor wherein we mix the chemical paste when we are moving the film’s paste from laboratory samples onto a larger production scale.

The developer used in instant film is a viscous liquid, and all ingredients are mixed in this reactor under controlled conditions. The developer is oxidation sensitive; air is removed using a vacuum. The reactor is purged with nitrogen when chemicals are added, to prevent air coming in. Never operate this machine without protective clothes…!

This is one of our oldest and legendary, and for sure most important machines when it comes to producing new instant films.

8 Factory Shots will present one photo a week for eight weeks.

Photo by Lia Sáile

The Chemical Lab

This is the place were the Impossible chief chemist Martin Steinmeijer and its small team of experts and helpers is performing magic, developing new recipes and formulas, creating thousand of the so-called lab-spreads and testing the new inventions.

Instant film is the challenging combination of Negative sheet, Positive sheet and developer paste. In the chemical lab different paste formulations are made, tested, discarded, invented. We search for the best formulation to get the right colors for given sheet and negative, and we work on improving the whole photographic performance.

8 Factory Shots will present one photo a week for eight weeks.

3/8 Ex-Polaroid colleagues

In former times about 1100 people used to work at the former Polaroid factory in Enschede. That was back then when around 65 Mio. Polaroid film packs were produced per year in Enschede only, and 130 million packs worldwide.

This whiteboard was used to divide the department’s team members to the different machines. All of the photos are still hanging on this wall, and the spirit of all those busy people is still around, inspiring our current Impossible tasks.

8 Factory Shots will present one photo a week for eight weeks.