4: Empowerment Photography with Tigz Rice, Instax and Polaroid Instant Cameras, GoPro HERO 12, Adobe Abandons Creative Cloud File Sync

The Photography and Video Show Podcast, Season 1 Episode 4
Published on Thursday, 14 September 2023

Hosted by David McClelland, with James Artaius and feature guest, Tigz Rice.

In this month’s show: David speaks to empowerment photographer Tigz Rice about body positivity and confidence, James shares his deep knowledge of all things instax and Polaroid in an instant photography deep-dive, while GoPro gets interesting with the HERO 12 Black, and Adobe abandons Creative Cloud file sync.

Stories in this episode:

•  GoPro HERO 12 Black (Digital Camera World)
• GoPro Log Encoding with GP-Log
• Adobe is Ending Creative Cloud Syncing (PetaPixel)
• Dropbox for Mac just got a lot worse (Forbes)
• Dropbox won't be able to sync to external drives on macOS (Apple Insider)
• Tigz Rice Empowerment Photography
• Strip/Tease - The Burlesque Photography of Tigz Rice
• Fujifilm just spent $30.5 million to make more Instax film (Digital Camera World)
• The best instant cameras in 2023 – retro prints from Instax, Polaroid and more (Digital Camera World)
• Polaroid I-2 Instant Camera - the first analogue instant camera with built-in manual controls
  Canon makes instant cameras?
• The Photography and Video Show, March 2024 

The Photography & Video Show Podcast:

• Find out more online: www.photographyshow.com/podcast
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• Connect with us on Twitter/X: @ukphotoshow
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• Email us: thephotographyshow@futurenet.com

Subscribe to The Photography & Video Show Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Photography & Video Show returns to the NEC Birmingham from 14-17 March 2026.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:27 Traveling light / yoga
• 2:46 GoPro HERO 12 Black Edition
• 8:00 Adobe abandons Creative Cloud file sync
• 12:27 Empowerment Photography with Tigz Rice
• 25:25 Rise and rise of instant cameras and photography
• 36:07 Get in touch

Transcript

2023–09 - Future - TPVS Podcast S01E04 (September)

David McClelland: ​[00:00:00] 

Hello, welcome to The Photography and Video Show Podcast. I'm David McClelland. I'm your host. 

And this month we're talking to Tigz Rice, burlesque and boudoir turned empowerment photographer about body positivity and confidence, and about making your models feel amazing before, during, and after the session. 

Tigz Rice: I want them to feel just a spark. I want to leave memories with people that last longer than the photos. I want the photos to be the reminder of the experience rather than just walking away with photos. I want them to leave with such a confidence that whatever was holding them back from not being in front of the camera before is no longer an issue. 

David McClelland: Plus we have new gear from GoPro, Adobe is killing off Creative Cloud sync for files [00:01:00] and how Polaroid and Instax are bucking imaging industry trends with their instants. 

Joining me is Digital Camera World editor, James Artaius. James, how you doing? 

James Artaius: I am doing very well. Really, really happy to be back. David. Thank you so much for welcoming me. 

David McClelland: Last time you and I spoke, you had gone on safari, sort of, with a Nikon Z8 in your hand and you were snapping some potentially lethal creatures with it. That was great to chat about. What else have you been up to this summer?

James Artaius: Interestingly enough, I have just returned from a trip to Andalusia in southern Spain where I've been working commercially photographing a yoga retreat, would you believe? Which is a great test of skill for lots of reasons. Also, a great test of packing because as anyone, yourself included, David, as anyone who's traveled with kit for a job knows you don't wanna put stuff in the hold if you can possibly help it.

So, it becomes an art of like, what can I get away with packing in my carry-on? Or my, you know, my, my overhead baggage. And as, as someone who's always been a huge fan and proponent of Micro Four Thirds kit, that is [00:02:00] really what I did this time. I was like, look, I need small, but, compact but capable gear that I can take and I'm gonna be working in a very intimate environment. There's some large spaces and some small space people are gonna be practicing, a quiet art, and they don't want somebody with a huge DSLR clicking away. So I need something that's small, that is discreet, that's quiet, and that fits in the overhead.

David McClelland: Were you partaking in the yoga itself as well as capturing it?

James Artaius: I was indeed, I was their sort of part business part pleasure as much as was possible. It was just a great, a reminder 'cause I used to work, you know, full-time in commercial editorial photography and it's nice to keep those tools on my own skills, sharp and nice to remind myself, you know, the tools, the trade, and how best to use them.

Not just, not just what journalists say you should do in articles on magazines and websites without any background. So it's nice to sort of put my money where my mouth is, I suppose.

David McClelland: Speaking of which, before we hear from our guest Tigz Rice, let's talk about some of what's new this month. 

The GoPro HERO 12 just dropped. Now. I'm not going to lie. I used to try and keep up with GoPro releases back in the day. I [00:03:00] think I lost the will to leave around about the HERO five or six when the differences began to diminish a bit. And it was a bit like those, those Now albums, Now That's What I Call Music albums from my childhood. That number just kept on incrementing. 

But the HERO 12 Black Edition really does seem to have people excited once again. So we're talking about 5.3K, 4K HDR video. That's one of the new things there. 10-bit colour. You can get up to 120 frames per second in 4K, 240 FPS in 2.7K silky, slow most stuff there. Stills capture stills on a GoPro, anyone? Well, if you wanted to they're up to 27 megapixels. More realistically, perhaps, still frame grabs from videos - they are at 24.7 megapixels or so, still very useful. The sensor has this really interesting aspect ratio, not the first time that GoPros used it. I think it was in the 11 as well. It's an 8:7 aspect ratio, 1/1.9-inch [00:04:00] sensor. Really good quality for vertical as well as horizontal video works in a number of different formats. Runtimes. That's another big thing here. Same battery pack as the last version, but with new power management on the inside, it means that it runs for twice as long now, which is great. Also, for video professionals in particular, new GoPro log mode shooting, you can download the lots for that already. 

Audio’s another really interesting area: I think you can now connect your AirPods or your Bluetooth headset, microphone, whatever. So you can for content creation purposes, fr example, commentate, give a live voiceover that will go onto one of the audio channels, while the other track you can record ambient sound from the device itself. I think that's quite interesting.

It's got time code synchronisation, in case you're recording lots of GoPros at once I know people that have done that in-cars for example. One of the forms I frequent, that's something people are particularly excited about.

But for the rest of us, I think [00:05:00] the return of the quarter inch 20 mount on the bottom is a big win because now you can actually mount these blooming things to the accessories which photographers and videographers already have. 

So, at £399 for this new GoPro, James, it sounds as though GoPro's maybe a starting to become interesting once again.

James Artaius: Yeah. Here's a question for you, David, because of all of the things you've just mentioned, the one thing I was talking to my colleagues about this morning was that notable by its absence, at least by me, is that GPS has been quietly removed

David McClelland: Oh, has it?

James Artaius: Now, I think the reasoning given for that was that, uh, with some sort of consumer research, GoPro had deduced that actually it's not a feature that anyone uses to a significant degree. Which may or may not be, entirely accurate to me, that's always been one of the, one of the main points of an action camera is having that sort of g p s functionality. It's certainly something I mentally expect in GoPros and Insta360s and things.[00:06:00]. Maybe, maybe I'm in the minority on that, and maybe it's one of those things that actually nobody uses, but they get very cross when they look at their old stuff and go, oh, it doesn't have, you know, any, any tagging information in it.

But that's what really stuck out to me amongst all the other specs, I thought, oh, that feels like a, an interesting one to lose. And that's kind of been part of the, the broader camera industry for a while, is the GPS device or GPS functionality in cameras has been slowly removed in part because we all.

Well, most of us carry a GPS in the form of a smartphone in our pocket. So, um, the manufacturers ask us to pair the app with the phone, and then when we take images or video, uh, it gets the data from the GPS in our phones. But it's an interesting move, from my perspective. And one that, again, if they really have to use that people aren't interested in this feature, that's fair enough, but I'll jolly well miss it for one.

David McClelland: It's been a long time since I've used GoPros, but certainly with my smartphone, I use the GPS tagging feature an awful lot, particularly if I'm trying to find some photos. It's all well and good. Being able to scroll back and make a [00:07:00] guess as to, oh, was it April, 2018 or April, 2019 when I was at that thing.

But actually just being able to scroll on the map and go, ah, yes, Hamburg, that's where I was. and you can find those images far, far faster than that. And I'm sure with some of the creation, uh, sorry, some of the curation that different photo services use, the ability to identify where the image was taken falls into the algorithm that it uses to create, whether it's the little video reel or whatever, the photos.

James Artaius: It might be something as simple as, battery life implications, could be a licensing thing, you know, such as for the longest time, photography cameras couldn't record more than 29 minutes and 59 seconds of video because it means they had to pay for the video licence. So it might be either of those things or it might just be a feature that nobody used, but I'm inclined to think there's probably more of a reason than just, oh, well nobody uses it.

David McClelland: Actually the, battery life thing, that sounds as though there might be some legs in that, given that GoPro has made a big thing about how it's revamped its entire energy management to achieve that twice running length [00:08:00] figure.

Adobe is stopping its Creative Cloud file sync feature very shortly for most of us. So, uh, the report on PetaPixel this week said Adobe announced this week that it will end support for Creative Cloud syncing next year.

Now for those of you who maybe don't use it or use Creative Cloud, stuff from Adobe, but maybe have it and don't realise that you have it. It lets you keep a copy of your stuff locally on your computer while keeping it up to date in the cloud as well so that you can access it from anywhere else.

I've certainly used it in the past and with my Creative Cloud subscription, I get a 100 GBs. I think most people get something of that magnitude. I've got 43 GBs ssed in there, I checked just a few moments ago, I have no idea what that all is. 

But I find that, with different cloud storage providers from Dropbox and Box and Google Drive and Creative Cloud, It very quickly gets a little bit messy and confusing when you're trying to find stuff if you're not hyper-organised. 

Anyway, [00:09:00] digging into the detail, it seems as though it's from the 1st of February, 2024 that free and personal paid users of Creative Cloud will lose their sync.

Um, if you are a business enterprise user or, or in teams accounts or whatever, you've got until October, so just over 12 months notice from the time of recording. I've not seen anything official yet in my inbox from Adobe, but then I might have just deleted it like I do with a lot of the stuff I get to be honest with you.

But I've, I do wonder what is actually going on here, James. Do, do you tend to use these cloud syncing services? Have you got a, you know, a hundred gig stashed away in your Creative Cloud box?

James Artaius: I think like yourself, the last time I checked there was, there was some huge amount of stuff that was stored in cloud and I had no idea what it was or where it had come from. I tend not to use Creative Cloud in that specific respect. There was a time when I was juggling just too many devices and I couldn't keep on top of which, what was going on and where, and I needed to revisit an old version.

For some reason, it just created [00:10:00] problems with my own workflow, but I know that a lot of people within my circle rely on that cloud functionality. The clue is in the name, it's Creative Cloud, You know, you do kind of expect that cloud functionality. 

I wonder at the root of this, we were just talking about GoPro potentially removing a feature because of knock on effects on something else.

What's the root cause of the reason for this decision? You know, is it Adobe being very proactive and going, oh, well, you know, nobody's using this or it's not as effective, so let's remove it? Or is there something at play that's kind of kicked them in that direction a little bit?

David McClelland: Well, yes, I wonder, I mean, certainly Adobe would have very close access to the, to, to the data, to the analytics, to know how much people are using it, how much it's costing them, and how much benefit they perceive their user base to get from it. 

But the thing, and this is purely me speculating, I haven't seen this referenced anywhere else here, but I know on Apple Mac platforms and I suspect there is quite a heavy skew of Creative Cloud subscribers that are on, [00:11:00] Mac rather than Windows. But Apple has been increasingly prescriptive about how file syncing into the cloud works. 

Those of us who use Dropbox, for example, one of the biggest, of these cloud storage syncing providers, we are going through a big change as, Dropbox is trying to keep up with what Apple's calling it's Apple File Provider API changes in the operating system. And some of these changes are really restrictive, potentially, and hindering functionality for those who've, who've moved onto the betas of that. But Dropbox and other cloud storage providers, they have no choice but to comply.

So, I wonder if Adobe is saying, you know what, it's just gonna create an awful user experience if we have to use this, really restrictive way of syncing stuff to our cloud storage. So we're going to take it away and we're gonna, maybe they'll dress it up as a, as some kind of feature or some.

Philosophical change that they're making to their offering? But I'll [00:12:00] put a couple of links in the show notes to why, uh, Barry Collins at Forbes says Dropbox for Mac just got a lot worse and, Apple Insider earlier this year, Dropbox won't be able to sync to external drives on MacOS. So, yeah, there are some changes whether your Creative Cloud syncing files or whether your Dropbox syncing files or by the sounds of it any other cloud sync provider. 

David McClelland: Tigz Rice is a photographer well-known and respected for her work in boudoir and burlesque. Her book, striptease features, images and stories from 68 burlesque performers captured across a decade of a work winning an award in 2020. Recently though her go-to-market and professional branding has changed. So I began by asking about the evolution of her work from burlesque and Buddha to empowerment photographer. 

Tigz Rice: It all started off in the world of burlesque. I was working with these [00:13:00] absolutely incredible super-humans that really it was, it was the first time that I found an industry or niche or particular group of people that felt that they were supportive of All ages and genders and sizes and body types.

There was something so magical about that, that was instantly drawn to it. So, when I started my career as a photographer, I was photographing these incredible people. it taught me so much about bodies and body confidence and seeing them get up on stage. And every different shape of human and style of human, however you want to talk about that the human race, humankind were all up there in glitter and sparkle diamantés and the works. 

It was really great place for me to thrive as a photographer, but also as a human there as well. I learned a lot about accepting my body and the skin that I live in daily. And so after photographing the stage for a while, I started approaching some of these performers and saying, I would really like to photograph you.

Would you be [00:14:00] willing to step in front of my camera? So, the burlesque definitely came first. And, as that journey was going on, other people started coming to me saying, well look, I'm not a burlesque performer, but I would like to be photographed in that style. Would you consider photographing me? And I'm like, of course. Like, if you want to be photographed the same way as these burlesque performers, let's do this. 

So, I was taking that Burlesque style, and I think very loosely coming up with, I don't know that boudoir was necessarily a term that was being used around time, think it was sort of, I'm not saying was the first boudoir photographer at all, just that term just wasn't really being used. and so I was taking that burlesque style and putting it into a non performer, non model context. 

So a lot of lingerie, striptease, what we now know as boudoir as well, kind of sort like the fringes of some of that. As that then developed and more non performers were coming to me, I then took my work [00:15:00] on tour with an incredible hair and make up artist and vintage pin-up model, Miss Victory Violet. And her audience was a little bit more, sort of, pin-up, clothes on. So people then started coming to me saying, I really like the way that you photograph your boudoir stuff. could you do that for me with my clothes on? Because I'm not quite at that stage yet where I want to put those photos on the internet. Absolutely, of course, taking all of that empowerment and body confidence and body positivity through into the pin up world. 

And then, around about 2019, 2020, people started saying: hey, I really love what you're doing with the pin-up models. Could you do that for me, but for my business, because I really want that powerful, power-femme, real dominant female gaze type photography in my personal branding work as well. Absolutely. 

And I realised that what was more important about what I was offering was less about the context of whether someone had their clothes on [00:16:00] or off, but more about the experience that I was giving them in terms of connecting or reconnecting with their bodies, giving them that confidence so that they could thrive and feel comfortable in front of the camera and then take that on into either their personal life or their professional life and see how that spark of confidence affected how they were going.

Even still at moment, I currently have two websites: I have what was the boudoir site, which is now my empowerment site, and the personal branding site, because I felt at one point they needed to be separate and maybe people didn't want their boudoir and their personal branding stuff mixed together. At the end of the day, I'm realising that empowerment is all encompassing and I mean, you only have to Google my name to see the lingerie stuff right at the top of Google.

So yeah, so it's been a conscious decision over the last couple of years to rebrand as an empowerment photographer and talk about the experience of being photographed as the main. selling point, my unique thing that I bring to the world, rather than [00:17:00] specifically branding myself as Boudoir Burlesque Personal Branding. 

David McClelland: The experience that your clients receive when they're working with you - what is it about how you run these sessions that puts your clients at ease? That enables them to be their, their best selves, perhaps to explore a version of themselves with you, that for whatever reason, they may not feel comfortable yet or, or able to share elsewhere in their lives? How do you, create that environment?

Tigz Rice: I think it really all comes down to having really great lines of communication. I mean, every relationship that we have, whether it be a friendship, a loved one, anyone that we work, live alongside, we have to have great communication skills to open up those channels so that people can be their best selves.

And so really it's giving and making space for them to feel like they can be present in front of you, through active listening, through maybe starting some those conversations in blog posts, and in [00:18:00] your website copy, for example, or in your socials and sharing those personal experiences, so that the wall comes down and they're speaking to a human rather than an entity, which guess was part of the rebrand as well, making sure that people knew that they were speaking to a real life human, and not some kind of bot or autoresponder or whatever.

A lot of the communication actually happens before shoot. It's the emails they send and quite often it will be, I have someone to get in touch, I've resonated with a specific blog post. So, through my career, I've blogged quite extensively, and I'm very fortunate that some of my clients will share their stories.

So, I've got a client that's went through a pre elective double mastectomy, for example, and, had a pre-surgery shoot so that she could document her body before. I think potentially there was the option to, we haven't shot yet, but I think there has been talk over the years of maybe a post surgery as well shoot.

I've had clients who have gone through extensive surgeries, so [00:19:00] then spent a year, so every three months documenting the progress of recovery and how they were able to do different poses depending on how their body was capable. 

So having those kinds of experiences and sharing them means that I get a lot of saying really with content you're putting out there and you've created and such and such person's shoot that you've shared, it gives them an opportunity to then say, you know, I'd love to talk to you about my experience or what I'm about to go through, what I have been. 

And then being present in a call beforehand, so they actually get time to spend with me and know who I am; and make sure that I’m present through hair and makeup as well, so that I'm not just the random strange photographer that's coming in photographing you, potentially your for the first time.

Because, you know, I mean, that's a whole wall of strangeness in itself: you know, you've contacted someone on the internet, you've never spoken before, and then suddenly you're meant to be in a room with them in your undercrackers - it's, it's breaking down those walls and giving them as many [00:20:00] opportunities as they can to connect, before we even get to the photographing bit.

David McClelland: Potentially, depending upon the shoot, there's an element of vulnerability when you're in front of a camera. That camera can become a bit of a barrier, between you and your subject. What tactics do you have, what strategies do you have to help people feel at ease once those lights are flashing?

Tigz Rice: If you think about it, the camera is always the elephant in the room and it's like, at times it can be real giant box of technology between you. And I don't think it's as bad as it used to be because cameras are generally getting smaller so that they're lot less intimidating. And with the development of EVF technology, and mirrorless cameras, you know, a lot of people are shooting with the cameras not directly in front their eyes. So, you know, you're actually being able to see people. 

But that aside, there's a whole lot of communication needs to go on during a shoot as well. So, you know, constant communication, positive reinforcement, trying to remember not to scowl at the back of the camera when the settings aren't quite what you, what mean them to be. But you know, if you are in a situation where [00:21:00] you're really having to focus on hard light, bad light, you know, whatever it is, your settings just aren't quite working in the environment that you're in, it's having that positive dialogue and saying: it's not you, I’m playing with the camera, I need to change this setting - you look fabulous. And maintaining a body positive or body neutrality, depending on who your client is and how they want. To be positively reinforced, you know, because you have be mindful as well.

But not every client who's there is in a position where they're comfortable talking about their body positively or negatively depending on potential traumas that they've got that's led to coming to that shoot. So finding a way that you can give positive feedback and praise in that position that you're in is incredible, like: I love the line that's going down, or I love the look on your face when you just looked over at window over just now - finding ways to keep that positive reinforcement going while still maintaining the fact that you have to do your job.

To do [00:22:00] that effectively takes a lot out of you, I suppose. But it's about creating the absolute best experience for them trying to make them forget that that camera's there.

David McClelland: What is your goal? What do you want your clients to feel, walk away with, after having worked with you?

Tigz Rice: I want them to feel just a spark. I want to leave memories with people that last longer than the photos. I want the photos to be. The reminder of the experience rather than just walking away with photos. So if their goal for a shoot, and we may have discussed this before, is to feel more connected to their body, I want that to happen for them. Or, I want them to leave with such a confidence that whatever was holding them back from not being in front of the camera before is no longer an issue.

I had a client, she actually, she came to me for a virtual shoot and one of the things we discussed beforehand was that she didn't really ever exist in photos because the act of taking up space existing in photos was, was a big [00:23:00] deal.

And we did this virtual shoot during lockdown, there was something about that shoot for her that unlocked her ability to be more present front of the camera. And from that day, she started taking selfies and showing up and existing in photos. And it's been so magical to watch that journey. You know, I'm such small, tiny speck in their lives.

I'm 4 percent of their, let alone their entire life, you know, I'm less than 1 percent of what their life, their entire life would be, but I would just love to just, even just a flicker of spark, an ember something that they can then take that away and go, okay, let me work on this, let me start this journey, let me start showing up for myself, and maybe they'll come back for another shoot, and maybe they'll just for the world, but they'll exist and they'll be documented.

And, that's the magic. That's, that's what we do. We help people show up themselves and that's all can hope. 

David McClelland: Do you find that people will come to you for a session [00:24:00] and, almost irrespective of the output from that session, the session itself is the, is the empowerment, it's their moment, it's whatever they wanted to get out of engaging with you? They've got that in the session and almost the photos never see the light of day again?

Tigz Rice: A lot of them actually, I'd say probably three quarters of my clients, they don't, I've never seen the photos But a lot of these are private experiences, not necessarily for anyone specific to view, it's for them to go through that process.

A lot of it is, I want to feel, I want to feel good in my body. I want to feel like I can show up. I have a few clients who haven't shared their photos, but have sent me pictures of their walls, and they've got like a personal wall of fame, and it's an entire wall of their bedroom, or sometimes it's a staircase, completely dedicated to their journey self discovery and self connection.

Every time I see one of those walls, like, I'm getting a bit emotional about it now, but they mean the world to me, you know. The fact that [00:25:00] someone has gone from never being in front of a camera, never showing up visually for themselves, and then suddenly the next thing I know, they've got entire wall, dedicated to themselves, like, yeah.

And, you know, if my photos never got shared, but those stories lived on, like, I'd be happy that that was my legacy.

David McClelland: Big, thanks to Tigz, and links to her website and her work are in the show notes. 

James film is dead. Long live film. Long live film! Well, also says Fujifilm - the clue’s in the name there, perhaps - which has just pumped more than $30 million into expanding the capacity of its film production facility. So, James, is Fujifilm having a ’90s flashback or do you think it’s onto something here? 

James Artaius: It's onto something and I think most of us have been onto something without perhaps being, cogent as to how [00:26:00] on it we've been. 

It's the rise or rather the continued rise or rather the continued dominance of instant cameras, instant film to the point where they, yeah, they had been close to shortages of instant film.

So that's Instax film. I should imagine Polaroid's been experiencing something similar. The same way we've seen, uh, shortages of 35mm film, 120 film, you know, in terms of old film cameras and SLRs, the same has been true of instant cameras.

So instant film has been for the last few years on a quiet comeback, and it's to the point where if you look at the state of the camera industry as a whole, we've seen most sectors going down. Most sectors have been in decline. The only two sectors that have been rising, vlogging cameras are on the increase and instant cameras.

Instant photography is a massive growth sector of photography, which is so backward considering how digitally oriented photography and imaging has become, actually, the simplest form of film really. I mean, you know, maybe, maybe it's not the simplest, but the most [00:27:00] primitive in some respects, form of film.

Instant photography is the thing that is actually keeping a lot of the fires stoked in the imaging business. It's quite fascinating.

David McClelland: So, who is this that is getting so excitable about going back to photographic roots, if you will, with, with film? I guess it's, it's not professionals who want absolute and utter control over their finished images for commercial projects with clients. Or maybe it is ?

James Artaius: Back in the day when we would use Polaroid backs on Hasselblad cameras on medium format bodies to do sort of test shots and things, there used to be the old joke, my photography mentor told me, you know, ‘to take your test shot it costs you a quid and a a new shirt’ - because you would take a photograph with your Polaroid, stick it under your armpit to develop, and so you would ruin the shirt, and it would cost you a pound to process that Polaroid. 

But, so there was at one point a genuine professional need for it. Nowadays, not really the case. I would say up until about two years ago, the real growth or the real, [00:28:00] market for instant cameras, instant photography was, young photographers or even people who wouldn't consider themselves photographers at all.

So you would see, Polaroids and Instax at weddings, for example, or at graduations or, invariably somebody in your group on a night out would have a camera to take. Or you go on a picnic with friends or you go out drinking or whatever it might be. Someone has an instant camera. Someone who maybe doesn't own another camera at all, save the one on their smartphone because there is something intrinsically tangibly wonderful about a physical artefact that comes out instantly. Instax takes about 15 seconds to develop. I think a Polaroid these days is about four minutes, but still instant gratification, if you like. 

So, up until a couple of years ago, I would say that's where the market was. 

But what Fujifilm has done in the last couple of years has released the Instax Mini Link or the Instax Link series of printers. So there's the Instax Link Mini for mini film, Instax Link Square for Square Instax film, Instax link wide for Instax wide film.

So these are all instant printers, but they don't use [00:29:00] paper, they don't use zinc ink, they use cartridges of Instax film. So you can take a photo on your smartphone or take a photo anywhere and print it out on a real Instax. Why would you want to do that? Well, lots of people do because they've been selling these mini printers like hotcakes. In America, there's a lot of interest in crafting and in scrapbooking. You print something out, an instant print, stick it in a scrapbook. 

There's also, again, a thing of like taking it to a wedding and you can then somebody takes a smartphone photo rather than trying to airdrop it or share it in WhatsApp group, you just plug your phone in or connect it by wifi or Bluetooth to an Instax mini printer, and then everyone can print out a copy of these.

So, that's really been the big development to my mind. In the last two years, we've gone from being just Instax cameras to now Instax printers. 

And I know for me personally, I love having a little Instax print of something I've shot even in a studio. I just think it's a cool thing. You know, we've been on a shoot for a day, I've worked with somebody and I can give them, you know, almost like a tear sheet of the day.

Here you go, have an Instax print, stick it on your social, stick it on the fridge, and or, or whatever might be. So to have [00:30:00] that, that really feels like the next step. That's the instant photography has taken.

David McClelland: So is it cool now? And the opposite to that in a way do you get a sense that among professionals - certainly not amongst you by the sounds of it - but there's a sense of snobbery around these cameras as well that that pushes against this cool factor?

James Artaius: It is an interesting one. So, one of my friends is actually, a Polaroid ambassador, and so I see him sharing his work in the same capacity that, you know, our friends who are Canon ambassadors or Nikon ambassadors would share their work. Purely by nature, by virtue of the format of his work, it's inherently not taken as seriously which is a great tragedy. It's a great tragedy that anyone's work isn't taken seriously. But you know, it feels like wow, just because this guy's images are on a sort of a, you know, a credit card sized printout essentially. Um, they're not considered as real photography somehow, and. You know, there are arguments about that in terms of how much manual control you take, how much everything else.

But yeah, there is certainly a degree of snobbery amongst quote unquote real [00:31:00] photographers about this particular, medium. Um, I think if we're looking at image fidelity, image quality. Well, a lot of people spend a lot of money on Lightroom presets and, um, you know, Instagram filters and plugins and things, trying to make digital files look analog and look retro and really, you know, all you need to do is get an Instax or a Polaroid camera, and you've got that effect in camera.

So it's a very, very circular, strange argument. 

David McClelland: So, in terms of the choice, so the film hopefully is not going to be so much of a problem, at least if you're in the Fujifilm ecosystem, the Instax ecosystem going forward. But how much of a choice do those interested in instant photography have in terms of cameras?

What's there right now?

James Artaius: So what we're really looking at is the same, the same story it's been for a while. You have Instax and Polaroid. There are other manufacturers such as Lomography, Lomo, make their own instant cameras. They use Fujifilm film. So it's essentially an Instax camera made by a different company.

And you do as I say, get these hybrid instant cameras. So Canon, for example, makes instant cameras, which is a surprise to many [00:32:00] people

David McClelland: It's a surprise to me, as I didn't know that.

James Artaius: Absolutely, they make instant cameras. Um, and they're these digital hybrids, so they record the file. Um, so it's using a, you know, maybe a five megapixel sensor. Which again, the photo snobs go ‘five megapixels’?. And then some of the, some of the cameras actually interpolate them up to 10 megapixels.

And then the, the real photographers go, oh goodness, it's in interpolations involved. That's even worse. But when you're printing, you know the amount of DPI you need for an instant print. Is not very much. A five megapixel sensor is more than adequate. So you know, you get those, those that I might argue are not pure instant photography.

So really you're looking at Instax and Polaroid. The differences between those two are. How should I say subtle but pronounced. So they're both instant devices. So they're both them print out an instant photograph. It's the characteristics that differentiate them. So on the Instax side, and this is true of Instax mini Instax wide and Instax Square film, you get a consistent performance among all three.

They're all essentially the same film stock, just in different sizes. [00:33:00] Instax characteristics are. What you would call better image quality by conventional terms. So they're sharper, the contrast is better, deeper blacks, all that sort of stuff. slightly unsaturated or slightly desaturated look, but more consistent.

Polaroid is kind of the kaleidoscopic, LSD-tinged throwback look that you expect from old school vintage cameras. Uh, you get very, you know, brilliant bursts of, of unpredictable colour flare, light leaks. You know, it is by, by, most measures, a less, quality image. But it has all those characteristics that, again, like as I mentioned before, people spend a lot of time trying to emulate vintage film looks on modern digital files. So if you want the real, the kind of the look that you've got from your parents' Polaroids that you found, you know, in a trunk, in the attic one day, Polaroid is the one to go for. That gives the real vintage look.

David McClelland: And quite by and genuinely by coincidence, really, it's only today Polaroid has announced a new manual control Polaroid camera. The [00:34:00] Polaroid, I think it's an I–2.

James Artaius: Yes, the Polaroid I–2, so this is a real departure for Polaroid. So as mentioned before when I said they were, affordable instant cameras have generally been very affordable. Sub $100, the premium ones with some fancy features, sort of go to $120, maybe £120. And they have some features that include, connectivity to your smartphone.

So you can do things like double exposures, portrait mode, light painting, all sorts of funky stuff. but quite apart from that, this is now, a manual Polaroid camera, that retails for the thick end when it's $600 or £600.

David McClelland: Wow.

James Artaius: That's quite a different proposition than what we were just talking about, I think on the one hand, yes, image quality is not the be all and end all with instant photography because you are not shooting that format for, you know, file fidelity. But when you're paying 600 bucks for a camera, maybe image quality's more important. And I think Polaroid strategy for the new camera is sort of saying, perfect imperfection or who needs perfection. It's sort of, it's, it's playing on that line of like the, the quality [00:35:00] isn't perfect. again, it's an interesting strategy for a camera of that price point, but it is very much in the spirit and in the keeping.

It's, it's an old boxy Polaroid style camera

David McClelland: It looks beautiful from the images on a well. So, uh, just a bit of a peek behind the curtain here. we were looking at this site early this morning just before we hit record, that page is now gone to a 404.

James Artaius: Aha.

David McClelland: They have de-listed that page, but I had another, tab open. If I were to hit refresh on this page, it would've gone.

So, we think this is going to be announced imminently. Certainly there are some proper images here. There's a price point, there's a lot of, description here. We expect over the next few days or so, this camera to be officially announced.

James Artaius: Yes, abso, I think they, they might have been caught out by the Polaroid police this morning for, for going, going live a little too early. 

David McClelland: James, thank you for, for chatting us through this, this world of instant photography. I, think maybe you're right, it is time to start taking Instax and Polaroid cameras and [00:36:00] their output more seriously than maybe we have up until now.

James Artaius: Agreed . 

David McClelland: That is all for today. We'll be back next month for more of the same. A quick reminder though, that the in-person photography and video show takes place at the NEC in Birmingham, from the 16th to the 19th of March 2024, almost exactly six months away. And any day now, the first speakers headlining of the show will be revealed along with the exhibitor list, at photographyshow.com. 

If you like what we do here on the show, then please leave a review, give us some stars. Some of you already have. Thank you. We'd love some more though to tickle that algorithm and help more people to find us. If there's something or someone you'd like us to cover on the show, then drop us a line on the socials on Insta/Threads @thephotographyshow on Twitter/X @ukphotoshow. Social media got very complicated this year, didn't it? 

James, terrific to have you on the show again this month, where can our listeners keep up with [00:37:00] you? 

James Artaius: They can check us out, online at www.digitalcameraworld.com as we can see all the latest news reviews, rumblings, and, uh, mind meanderings on the camera industry. And if you're interested in the sort of things I shoot, I am on Instagram @JamesArtaius, all one word. So come and say hi, leave a comment.

David McClelland: Rumblings and meanderings and my particular favourites on the DCW website, I look forward to reading more of those this month. Thank you all for joining us until next time. Bye-bye.