"[It was on this day] I suddenly knew how to make a one-step dry photographic process."
Edwin Land
The "Polaroid" camera became an instant classic following its conception, more than sixty years ago. Although the technology behind self-developing film was already present at the time, it was Edwin Land (1909-1991), founder of the Polaroid Corporation, who designed and produced the first commercially available self-developing camera in 1946, an invention that won its creator many accolades.
Land formed his company in 1937 to produce and sell the polarizing filters he had patented eight years before, and soon the company was making filters for the United States in World War II. Land was on vacation with his daughter in 1943 when, after snapping a photo of her, she asked why she had to wait so long to see the image. He soon visualized a system of "one step dry photography," whereby the image would develop within sixty seconds inside the camera.
In the years following World War II, when demand for polarizing filters sagged, Land turned his "instant camera" idea into reality. He unveiled his finished invention at the Optical Society of America in 1947 by taking a photo of himself and revealing it to the audience after just a minute. The first of Land's cameras, the Model 95, became available in November the next year, and was an instant sellout.
Polaroid continued to produce redesigned cameras and film—including the release of an X-ray film for radiography in 1951—right up until February 2008, when the company stopped producing all instant film after falling sales due to the advent of digital cameras. It seems that this once revolutionary photographic invention has had its day.
