As of: 02/21/2022 4:07 p.m
Edwin Land invented the instant camera 75 years ago. She revolutionized photography and still fascinates people all over the world today. This is also reflected in the sales figures of the past few years.
“It really slows me down in the digital age,” says Jennifer Rumbach. The photographer has been working with Polaroid material for more than 15 years. “I feel the adrenaline every time. You get the result right away. It’s not like with a digital camera where I press the shutter button 50 times.” Instant cameras are not that wasteful. Sometimes she doesn’t even take a picture, says Rumbach. You take pictures more consciously. “There is still old film material, and the films tend to cost 70 to 100 euros. You think carefully about every motif.” The colors in the old films are special. “The pictures have a special smell and something very tactile. That’s sensual photography,” enthuses the photographer from Cologne.
revolution for photography
75 years ago, physicist Edwin Land presented his first instant camera in New York. The Polaroid company revolutionized photography with it. A few months later, the Land Camera Model 95 rolled off the assembly line. It cost less than $90 and sold millions of copies.
Max Greve knows why. He is a lecturer in photo technology at the University of Folkwang. “You shake. You watch how the picture is created. You see how photographic technology works. From a technical point of view, it’s a phenomenon,” says Greve. “The rollers in the camera develop the photo themselves and apply the chemistry. That’s a photo studio always with you.” From an aesthetic point of view, the Polaroid picture is a disaster. “The pictures are bad and blurred. But such catastrophes are also valuable. The material has a justification for the spontaneous and the emotional picture.”
The instant camera developed by Edwin Land sold millions of copies.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Akg/United
Popular not only with artists
Artists like Andy Warhol were fans of Polaroid images. They loved the imperfect, the authentic, the surprise that only dissipates after a few seconds. Greve’s colleague Matthias Gründig from Folkwang University agrees. “That can give the recordings a completely different sentimental value,” says Gründig. “In case of doubt, the one tangible instant picture stands in contrast to the thousands of fleeting smartphone pictures that we may have taken but not necessarily looked at again.” At least that is the romance that keeps instant photos alive as commodities.
Private recordings without a laboratory
According to Greve, one reason for the success is that users were able to create photos without having to reveal their motifs in the laboratory. “People could take intimate pictures, capture private moments even in the bedroom. That wasn’t released to be developed.” This also ensured the rise of instant cameras.
In the digital world, Polaroids seem to have fallen out of time. With the Polaroid SX-70 from the 1970s, taking photos becomes an experience, says Greve. “It’s a design object and just incredibly well done. The technicians showed what they can do when the small electric motor whirrs and spits out the finished photo.”
In the 1980s and 1990s, Polaroid experienced a boom with sales in the billions of dollars – also thanks to advertising slogans such as “The fun starts immediately”. But with digital photography, the mass market disappeared in the new millennium. In 2001, the company filed for bankruptcy for the first time. This has been followed by several takeovers and another bankruptcy in 2008.
The colors and the special material make instant photos attractive to photographers like Jennifer Rumbach to this day.
Image: Jennifer Rumbach
Against the flood of images
According to Rumbach, the aesthetics on Instagram were initially very similar to the Polaroid with the filters and colors. But the comparison to Instagram lags, says Greve. “Instagram doesn’t cost anything. A Polaroid also cost money when color film was cheap. Those were few and special pictures that were rarely shown around at the time.”
Edwin Wand’s invention is a remedy for the flood of images today, says Jennifer Rumbach. Sometimes less is more. The photographer likes to work with Polaroid for private photos, but also for commissioned work when she publishes entire series of instant photos. “As a photographer, I mostly only work digitally. With instant cameras, I have less control and achieve more authenticity.” Lecturer Greve understands the fascination of instant cameras. “Today it’s almost like a mystery. Perhaps young people don’t even know it anymore. The tangible, taking away, hanging the pictures on the wall. The pictures are actually scary and bad – and yet so touching.”