In Focus: The Evolution of the Personal Camera

Digital Photography

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thenoiz/15327736165

Polaroid SX-70 Land Model 2 with film cartridge protruding from the front

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polaroid_SX-70.jpg

The inventor and founder of the Polaroid Corporation, Edwin H. Land, developed the first instant camera as a hobby during World War II. After the war, the growth of the American economy made it possible for new industries to flourish. One of these industries was instant photography. 
Polaroid photography focused on minimizing the time between taking the photograph and viewing the image. However, the first Polaroid camera, which debuted in 1948, still relied on the photographer to time the development of the film, pull out the print to burst a pod of developing chemicals, and peel away the top film. These first film prints were in sepia-tone, followed by black-and-white prints in 1950. The Polaroid company actually published a magazine advertisement for their black-and-white film before it was available, and their employees worked quickly to meet public demand.
As instant camera technology progressed, it became possible for the prints to develop within a minute before the eyes of the user (oftentimes, people would wave Polaroids in the air to encourage faster image development). After the popular black-and-white prints came the peel-apart color prints in 1963, and non-peel-apart color prints followed in 1972. By 1977, the height of its popularity, Polaroid held two-thirds of the instant camera market, despite competition from Kodak.
Around 1979, the sales of instant cameras began to decrease, as video cameras and 35-millimeter cameras became smaller and cheaper. Ultimately, Polaroid’s innovations in instant photography created a public desire which would lead to their own demise at the hands of an even more instant medium—digital photography.

Introduces Polaroids marketing campaign for the year 1964, including TV commercials. Produced for dealers.

Bay State Film Productions, Inc.; Polaroid Corporation

First Lady Betty Ford Takes a Photograph using a Polaroid SX-70 Camera

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The 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum

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The invention of instant photography, popularized by the Polaroid camera, marked an exciting new shift in the photography industry. People could take pictures on impulse and then moments later have a developed photo. Unlike other types of film, Polaroid prints did not produce a negative and (before the development of digital scanners) could not be reproduced. Rather, they were solely images “of the moment.” 
Polaroid advertisements in the mid twentieth-century wowed buyers with the promise that they could “take and show party pictures while the fun is going on.” They also emphasized the use of their cameras in social settings, with advertisements saying, “You’re the life of the party with a Polaroid Land Camera.” In 1976, Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Photography, Geoffrey Crawley, observed that taking instant photos had morphed picture taking into a communal activity that could be enjoyed amongst groups of friends. Writer Peggy Sealfon also noted that instant cameras could be used as icebreakers, and “[w]ould motivate people to do unexpected things, just to see the immediate record of their behavior.”
Polaroid’s immediately-viewable images were the world’s introduction to the concept of instant images and a precursor to digital photography. Despite the rise of digital photos, Polaroid prints continue to enjoy a worldwide cult status as aesthetically distinctive because of their iconic white borders and particular size.

In Focus: The Evolution of the Personal Camera

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Instant Gratification