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Galaxy Wants to Make 20×24″ Direct Positive Photo Paper

Chris Gampat
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07/28/2015
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Last Updated on 07/28/2015 by Chris Gampat

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The story of Galaxy is similar to that of the Impossible Project except that Galaxy is trying to revive an old Kodak process. According to the company’s Kickstarter page, Kodak discontinued a line of direct positive paper back in the 1970s. For the uninitiated, direct positive paper is photosensitive paper where the image develops right onto the paper. Think of it like a wet plate or a Polaroid except that the paper doesn’t have the chemicals built in for development like Instant film does.

Galaxy found a book all about it and set about trying to find a way to re-create the paper in some ways. However, Galaxy believes that they can actually do a much better job and make the paper available in higher ISOs comparable to 120 film. They also claim that they can make the paper available with a higher dynamic range, and with an easier development process.

The paper, if funded fully on Kickstarter, will have a fixed grade contrast as well as a glossy embossed surface. Photographers will be able to shoot with it in 4×5″, 5×7″, 8×10″, 11×14″, 16×20″ with custom sizes available in 4×10″, 7×17″, 8×20″, 12×20″, 14×17″, 20×24″ and some rolls of different sizes. The idea of simply being able to shoot at 20×24″ with direct positive paper is thrilling!

So what will this mean for photographers? For those of us that still love to shoot with film (and there are a heck of a lot of you that read this site) we’ll have more options available in large format as both Kodak’s and Fujifilm’s numbers seem to be dwindling. Smaller and less traditional companies seem to be trying to keep it alive and do very well according to a recent investigation we did.

Large format positive paper offers a quality that you simply can’t duplicate with digital cameras. The grain is organic, the dynamic range may not necessarily be the same but the image is truly analog and tactile. If you shoot a 20×24 image, you can easily frame it and put it on your wall instead of needing to do the print out. That image is very much an original.

Head on over to the page’s Kickstarter for more info.

fujifilm Galaxy kickstarter kodak photo positive paper
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.