In An Instant

The magic of Polaroid is as spellbinding now as ever. John Wade looks at its history and considers some of the brand’s most significant cameras

- John Wade

Have you ever wondered why instant-picture cameras are called Polaroids? The story starts in 1926 when 17-year-old Harvard University student Edwin Land was walking along Broadway in New York City. Dazzled by the headlamps of passing cars, he wondered how polarising materials might be used to reduce the glare for drivers. Taking leave from university, he began his research. Within two years, he had found a method of producing flat sheets of polarising material.

Land returned to Harvard but finally left in 1932 without taking his degree. (The university later awarded him his honorary doctorate of science.) He set up a company for optical research and the production of polarising material, and within five years, the company had become the Polaroid Corporation, from whence came the name of the cameras that followed.

There is a story that might be apocryphal, but which is probably grounded in fact, that one day in 1943, Land was photographing his young daughter, who expressed surprise that she couldn’t see the photograph immediately after it had been taken. That led him to begin thinking about instant photography. Four years of research later, Land announced his process to the Optical Society of America. The first instant picture camera went on sale in 1948.

Twin paper rolls

Early Polaroid cameras used twin rolls of sensitised paper connected by a leader. The rolls were dropped into chambers at opposite ends of the body with the leader threaded between rollers and out of the back.

One of the papers faced the lens. After exposure, the leader was pulled, causing the exposed paper negative from one spool and the sensitised printing paper from the other to come into contact. Chemical pods of a one-solution developer and fixer burst under pressure from the rollers, spreading the solution between the two layers.