Instant photography
1947 (demonstrated); 1948 (Polaroid Model 95 on sale)
Edwin Land’s camera developed and printed its own picture in about a minute, by spreading a pod of chemicals between negative and paper as the film was pulled out.
How it began
In 1943, the story goes, Edwin Land’s three-year-old daughter asked why she could not see a photograph straight away. Land, who had founded Polaroid to make polarising filters, worked out a chemistry that could, and demonstrated it in February 1947. The Model 95 camera went on sale in November 1948.
How it works
The negative and a sheet of receiving paper are pulled together between rollers, which burst a pod of thick reagent and spread it between them. The developer makes a negative image while a solvent carries the unexposed silver across to the paper, where it forms a positive. The two are peeled apart.
Why it mattered
It removed the darkroom and the wait. Instant pictures suited insurance claims, police work, ID cards and test shots in professional studios, and became a social habit. The 1972 sx 70 made it a single sheet that developed in the hand.
Limits and what replaced it
Prints were small, one of a kind and costly per shot, and digital screens gave the same instant look for free. Polaroid stopped making film in 2008, but Instax and the Impossible Project kept the format alive.
Today
Fujifilm’s Instax and the revived Polaroid films sell millions of packs a year, mostly for parties and keepsakes.