Photography Culture

Instant: The Story of Polaroid Recounts The Story of Instant Love

Chris Gampat
No Comments
12/10/2012
1 Min read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Polaroid 210 With Canon 580 EX II scans and photo (3 of 3)

Last Updated on 12/10/2012 by Chris Gampat

The New York Times’s Lens Blog has a wonderful mini book review of Instant: The Story of Polaroid. The book recounts how Edwin Land decided to create Instant Film because his daughter was impatient and wanted to see her images immediately; she didn’t want to wait for the development time that typical slide and negative film need. He went on to do lots of research, trial and error, and eventually founded the Polaroid company; which apparently Steve Jobs modelled Apple after.

Land’s creations are numerous; I own a Polaroid Land Camera 185; and love it to death. News Editor Peter Walkowiak was recently staying in NY and I was able to open his eyes to the beauty that instant film can deliver. However, one of his benchmark success stories is the SX-70; a camera very highly valued even now. Editorial shoots are still done with this camera, with famed photographer Emiliano Granado being one of the users. The article, even goes on to talk about the Impossible Project, and how Land would have been horrified with their unpredictable results. It’s very much worth the read.

The book is available in Paperback or in the Kindle Store.

book review edwin land instant film nytimes polaroid
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.