Sometimes it just stands above everything, the name of a brand or a company. Who in Germany still says paper handkerchief, nut nougat cream or adhesive tape? It is better to use the well-known brand names – the reader already knows which ones. Linguistics speaks here of deonyms. And that’s how it is with the “instant camera”, which is of course a bit outdated. You can also simply say: Polaroid.
Exactly 75 years ago, an American physicist and entrepreneur named Edwin Land (1909 – 1991) presented this invention to the world for the first time, which revolutionized analogue photography: With the Polaroid Model 95 it was not only possible to capture something photographically. Thanks to a chemical reaction, the picture that was just taken developed within seconds as if by itself. Edwin Land, the name of his company derives from the polarization filters he originally sold, registered almost as many patents as Thomas Alva during his lifetime Edison. With the camera he had finally fulfilled the wish for “instant pictures” expressed by his little daughter in 1943.
There was even more: Physicist Edwin Land with an oversized instant photo.
(Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection via www.imago-images.de/imago images/Everett Collection)
From 1948 the sales curve of his product went up steeply. In the early 1960s, twice as many Polaroid cameras were sold in the USA as 35mm cameras. And instant color images were initially even cheaper than those from the fixer. But Land wanted more. In the middle of the night he called his technicians and commissioned them, for example, to build a giant Polaroid with which he could photograph oil paintings.
So, first of all, there was this immediacy. The ability to share a photo with others as soon as it is taken. And secondly there was: the intimacy. No matter what you photographed, you didn’t have to worry that what was entrusted to you here would be scrutinized by laboratory staff, photo shop employees or morality guards. Now everything was possible! They were used not only by private individuals, but also by secret services, terrorists, the police and artists such as Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton, David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe and Wim Wenders.
Surprising results after the expiry date is exceeded
The foldable Polaroid model SX-70, offered from 1972, was particularly successful. If you inserted the new film cassette here and pressed the red release button, the camera first spat out the cassette cover and then sometimes more, sometimes fewer instant photos. Each image was already an artistic interpretation of reality. Coincidence also played a role: Depending on the room temperature, the photos, which had been mutated from negative to positive by the chemical process, either had a red or a blue tint. The results were even more surprising when the film cassette had long passed its expiry date. In any case, you could feel it again here, that primal feeling of photography: anyone could be an artist and create a unique piece (already framed in white) at the touch of a button.
And so, at some point, the Polaroid camera even became the first logo for the “Instagram” app, which already alludes to instant photography in its name. Despite financial failures: Polaroid and the analogue instant photo are still alive. In 2019 alone, half a million instant cameras from a wide variety of brands were sold in Germany, according to the photo industry association. Teenagers who are tired of the flood of digital images are particularly interested in this.