Photo fans, get ready for Polaroid news on Wednesday. The camera company is currently running a teaser banner suggesting some potentially big analog camera news is coming next week.
Outside of the countdown, Polaroid isn’t dropping too many hints on exactly what that announcement might be. The banner displays several teaser statements, some of them more obscure than others. Among the less vague statements are suggestions of “analog dreams.” One slide lists four types of 8×10 film the company previously made while another alludes to “the most complex set of man-made chemical reactions ever.”
The countdown suggests that the announcement will be just as big as one made in 1977. On Polaroid’s website, the company history shows that the Polaroid OneStep debuted that year, an inexpensive fixed-focus camera that became the best-selling camera that year. The OneStep also featured the now-iconic design with a white camera and that characteristic rainbow stripe.
With allusions to the OneStep mixed in with references to 8×10 film and even ski goggles (which the company produced in 1939 for the Army and Navy), Polaroid fans are going to have to wait until Wednesday to find out what it all means.
According to The Phoblographer, which first spotted the teaser, an owner of the Impossible Project, a company bringing back once-dead film formats and film cameras, bought a majority stock in Polaroid earlier this year — the teaser could be for a product resulting from that relationship.
2017 is Polaroid’s 80th anniversary. The company was most popular for its instant film camera, an invention Edwin Land dreamed up after his 3-year-old asked why she could not see the picture right away. The company declared bankruptcy in 2001, selling off the brand as a result. While the brand name is still around, Polaroid’s current lineup is for instant digital cameras using Zink paper, not film, despite the fact that several companies, including Fujifilm, are doing well by once again selling instant film cameras.
The website teaser includes an option for fans to submit their email to be “among the first” to find out exactly what the announcement is.