Some Sad Photographic News New 55 and Hedrich Blessing - Closed!

As anyone who visits my site knows my posting has become a lot more infrequent. Time commitments in my life have reduced the amount of available time for my photography interests. Today I came to check my site, look over links and generally make sure things were still working. In checking my inspiration and links section I discovered that during my absence two of my links had stopped working. The first was my link to New 55 Film. They were a start up Kickstarter company that was trying to bring to market a new peal apart instant film for 4x5 polaroid camera's.


I was very excited about the potential new product as there may be no manufacturers of instant film remaining. As a large format camera owner instant film was how I learned the craft of architectural photography. The process was fairly simple. Set up your shot. Take all the necessary preparations and then shoot some test shot with instant film. When Polaroid went out of business in pretty much destroyed the financial viability of the large format camera for many professionals as it requires some degree of certainty that you have the shots you want or are being paid to produce.


New 55 was a valiant effort to return an instant 4x5 film to the market and at the same time provide a viable negative along with a print. They had done it. They had gotten the product design pretty well in place and were delivering product. But the whole operation could never scaled up to move past a craft operation. For them to be financially viable as a going concern they needed to make production equipment that was more efficient, required less hand labor and had higher levels of consistency. Having watched them struggle and fail was sad especially in light of the analog resurgence that seems to be taking place elsewhere in such things ad vinyl records and typewriters.


I was also saddened to learn that the famous Hedrich Blessing photo studio in Chicago closed its doors. Several of it's remaining photographers have started a new studio but the legacy of world famous photographs from the famous Chicago company has sadly come to and end. The archives have been transferred and I have put a link up. See the information and inspiration section of the blog.


The photography market place continues to be one of ruthless change and competition. There is nothing standing still in this world, especially not in the photography industry.