Although not new, "Instant: The Story of Polaroid" is still a wonderful book all about the history of Edwin Land and his creation of instant photography. If you're old enough, you remember that sweet, acrid smell of the pink bar of photo coating from the very first b&w Polaroid cameras. Or the fun and kicky '"Swinger" camera. Or the magical folding SX-70 camera and its iconic white-framed color photos (and contrary to popular belief, there was no reason to shake, shake, shake the developing instant image!). I enjoyed the book's fantastic details and photos of early prototypes, notes on Land's astounding Retinex human color vision theory (go look for the re-enactments on You Tube), and the Impossible quest to reboot the color film chemistry after Polaroid went bankrupt.
Now there's an equally fascinating follow-up documentary: "The Revenge of Analog: For Those Who Are Sick of the Digital World." This stunningly beautiful film starts with Impossible (the start-up that tried and finally succeeded to restart Polaroid film) and then moves on all kinds of wonderful analog interests.
I wanna to go to Supersense, the creative space in Vienna, to explore the Viennese food & coffee, the romantic candle lit encounters, the traditional letterpress, live music with direct-to-disc recording, cutting edge instant photography lab, old world typewriters, and who knows what other hipster retro-playthings.