The Polaroid Book: Selections From The Polaroid Collections Of Photography

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But we all knew from day one that the mission was to reunite with Polaroid—after all, we were making Polaroid film! In true Edwin Land style, he thought deeply, recruited the best scientists to the project, and worked day and night until the first instant photo product from Polaroid was launched in 1948. Brimming with all the warmth and nostalgia of a family album, this ode to the instant camera presents hundreds of images from the Polaroid Corporation’s own collection. Barbara Hitchcock is the director of cultural affairs for the Polaroid Corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts. This new instant camera was revolutionary: bringing the magic of creating a photograph right in front of your eyes to the world for the first time.

Armed with this new and revolutionized instant technology, Polaroid took the world by storm, growing to a two-billion-dollar-a-year business.This is when the most iconic Polaroid format was born, the one I was holding in my hands in the gallery in New York, taking it all in.

They were sitting at home with no pictures to look at as a camera like this (and all cameras made at the time) required developing the pictures in a darkroom lab, a process that takes at least a few days and lots of specialized chemistry and equipment.The heroes came from where you would least expect them—a spider eye PhD named Florian “Doc” Kaps, and his family and friends, managed to purchase the last factory, literally days before it was scheduled for scrapping.