By Jeanine Budd

Dan Slavin has been stocking up on Polaroid instant film ever since he learned that the company will stop producing it this spring.

Slavin, a freshman architecture major who works at CVS and owns two Polaroid cameras, said he’s going to avoid the inevitable for as long as possible.

“Until they run out of film, I’m going to keep snapping pictures,” he said. “After that, it’s going to be a different story. I don’t really know what I’m going to do, but I’m not really looking forward to that day.”

With supplies expected to run out by the end of 2009, many Polaroid users have been left scrambling to preserve the use of the historic artifact.

“I would just like to remind Polaroid that they were part of a revolution. They started a trend and now they’re taking that away from us,” Slavin said.

Yet Slavin acknowledged that while it’s a frustrating transition for him and many other Polaroid users, it’s all a part of progress.

“Picture quality is getting better and better, but you’re losing some of the human aspect,” he said. “A Polaroid picture might be flawed, but you took it with a camera that’s older than yourself. Digital cameras just aren’t the same.”

A Polaroid spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said in 2005 the company realized they could no longer afford the raw materials used to create the original cameras. During the course of the next two years, they began the transition to producing digital cameras. In late 2005, they stopped producing the Polaroid Instant Cameras altogether and this spring, they will cease to produce the film that goes along with them.

The move will shut down factories in Mexico, the Netherlands and Waltham and Norwood, but customer service support for the cameras will remain in place for years. All the workers who have lost their jobs as a result have been given as much information as possible and were offered outplacement training services, according to a statement released by Polaroid.

While Polaroid has been forced to put stickers on all their film and cameras warning that availability is not guaranteed beyond 2009, all hope is not lost in terms of its production.

“They are looking to license the technologies to someone else to see if some other company might have the ability to maintain it,” the Polaroid spokesperson said. “They would love for someone else to step in who could be like another partner, who could even use the same Polaroid logo but through their own supply chain.”

For Polaroid users in search of a replacement for instant photos, Polaroid has revealed its new Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer, which uses “ZINK” or “zero ink” technology. According to Polaroid’s website, the printer attaches to a digital camera and spits out 2″ x 3″ borderless, sticky-back prints that are fade-resistant. Since the printer is full of ZINK Paper, which uses heat to form a picture in 30 seconds, no ink is required.

“It’s a nice idea,” said Neal Rantoul, head of the photography program at Northeastern. “But, it’s a much different, much more diverse medium than ever before and printing is just one part of it.”

Jeff Newman, the manager of Calumet Photo, a camera and supply store located in East Cambridge, said he’s seen sales of not just Polaroid instant film, but film as a whole, go down 20-30 percent during the last couple of years.

“Most of this is being replaced by digital imaging,” he said. “The only people who will truly miss it are people using Polaroid for fine art technology.”

Newman acknowledged the fact that the film industry seems to be slowing down significantly, but said that Calumet Photo will continue to sell film as a whole until it is no longer a profitable item.

“I don’t see paper going away,” he said. “And I don’t see the fine art photographer going away any time soon, either.”

A trip to the place that uses digital images the most, the Internet, reveals that a rallying cry around saving Polaroid Instant Cameras has been widely developed. From the hundreds of groups on Facebook and flickr.com, to the web site SavePolaroid.com, it’s evident that if the film does indeed completely disappear, many will miss it.

“There’s a lot of online groups all dedicated to Polaroid cameras. I’m not alone in this,” Slavin said. “What are all these people going to do?”