EDWIN LAND – THE GENIUS WITH THE MAGIC CAMERA
Despite digital cameras delivering ‘instant’ images every time the shutter button is pressed, the instant print continues to appeal, creating a healthy business for Fujifilm with its Instax line, and plenty of investment in the revived Polaroid which, today, is re-creating a number of its original cameras as well as producing new products. There are plenty of other companies selling instant cameras – mostly based on Instax models – or refurbishing classics such as the Polaroid SX70.
Is it the fascination with the idea of a unique one-off print? Or is it simply the whole experience of watching an image slowly form before your very eyes, as if by magic? Regardless, the instant camera was a hit from the very start and has remained so ever since, bouncing back from a lull caused by everybody focusing their attentions on digital imaging.
Of course, today’s market is essentially niche and concentrates largely on the fun factor, but at the height of the instant print’s popularity it was also seen as a very fashionable art medium – championed by the likes of Andy Warhol and David Hockney – and it was widely used by professional photographers for checking focus and exposure before committing a shot to film. Most medium format SLR camera systems included a Polaroid back for this purpose and holders were available for 4x5-inch and 8x10-inch large format cameras. Yes, there were 8x10-inch Polaroid instant print films (and it’s also since been revived).
The genius behind the development of the instant photo print – also called the selfdeveloping print – was Edwin Herbert Land, born on 7 May 1909 in the US state of Connecticut, the son of Russian Jewish refugees. From an early age, he was fascinated by the way things work and became something of a menace in his household, dismantling items like the family’s new gramophone player and regularly blowing the home’s electrics with his experiments. At Harvard University, Land studied physics, specialising in optics, but he left before finishing his degree, his eyes set on commercialising what he had learned about the nature of light
