Selfie, everybody like selfie. This also applied to one young girl. It was one of the holiday night that this little young girl asked her father some curious question, and with that question; have changed the future of a photography entirely.
In 1940, Edwin H. Land was a founder of Polaroid, he produced glasses, ski goggles, 3D glasses, and night vision googles for the Army and Navy during World War II. One night during his holiday, Edwin was having a reunion and party with his family like everybody else. He decided to take a photograph with his family. However, during the snap with his 3 years old daughter, she asked why she can’t see the picture he has just taken. That day Edwin realized something, and he pursued his thought into his experiment (History).
Edwin and his crew began to take the experiment on an instant camera that produce a photo instantly like it’s named in his company. He succeeds the experiment in 1947, thus the very first “photo in a minute” demonstration was shown to the audience, they were fascinated to the product of Edwin. It was a huge fuss talk of the town for a while. Until on November 26, 1948, the very first instant camera was sold for $89.95 at Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the Land Model 95, the original prototype of every instant camera in the world (History).
With the current technology that anybody could acquire a camera now, taking a photo became one of the routine thing to do. However, way back in early develop, camera It was not easy to have. Since its required a certain amount of skilled on how to use them properly; not talking about washing the film. Due the instant camera was easy to use and not overly expensive, instant camera became top hit in a minute. As Edwin was underestimated the demand, his all product was sold out in the first launching day (Archambault).
And the huge success continue, Edwin instant camera legacy was a boom as the prime time on Apple with Steve Jobs. Edwin produced many other models that is easier to use and smaller. He was one of the biggest success in that era. Speaking of Jobs, Edwin was heavily influent to Jobs on his idea and how to make the products and marketing as well (Linderman).
Unfortunately, not everything last forever. In the development of camera, other company also improving their technology as well. As the camera became able to fill in memories storage instead of a film, Polaroid selling was going down. Since storing image that is easier than washing the film and harder to use. Memories storage also doesn’t cost anything besides its own product price. As well as having its own monitor on camera, instant camera became unnecessary in the market. Thus, in 2001, the Polaroid Corporation was Bankrupted (Archambault).
However, the dream still lives on. Many Polaroid fans was still out there, may be because of the charm or royalty; the demand of instant camera was somewhat still valid. At that moment in 2008, Fujifilm and Impossible Project company perused on left over instant camera dream to produce the next-generation of instant camera by Fujifilm producing camera model called Instax and Impossible Project making the old film to use with (Archambault). With those two companies, the photographer around the world can still enjoy shooting instant film.
Works Cited
Archambault, Michael. “The History and Magic of Instant Photography”. PetaPixel.
http://petapixel.com/2015/06/11/the-history-and-magic-of-instant-photography/. Accessed 21 November 2016.
“History”. Polaroid. www.polaroid.com/history Accessed 21 November 2016.
Linderman, Matt. “The story of Polariod inventor Edwin Land, one of Steve Jobs’ biggest heroes”.
Signalvnoise. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2666-the-story-of-polaroid-inventor-edwin-land-one-of-steve-jobs-biggest-
heroes. Access 21 November 2016.
Inspired by One Little Girl
