Instant Photography Is Launched

Starting in 1944, the SX-70 division carried out experiments to create a photographic print in one minute. Research for film development and camera engineering took place as separate activities. Film development technicians used a small sheet of negative film; a pod of chemical reagents; and a small positive receiving sheet. They exposed the negative in a standard camera and in a darkroom assembled a sandwich of a negative, a reagent pod, and a positive receiving sheet in the bite of a pair of rollers. They pulled the sandwich through the rollers that burst the pod and spread the developer evenly between the negative and positive sheets. After one minute, the finished print was peeled off the sandwich.

The genius in Land’s invention stemmed from the immediacy of the process. Among the challenges the film team faced was determining the optimal chemical makeup and amount of viscous solution to be released from the airtight pod in the camera. The solution developed the negative and positive and created a single, dry print in sixty seconds.1

Research chemist Frederick J. Binda helped develop the pod, a critical element of the system that eliminated the need for a darkroom. Instead of washing away the unexposed, undeveloped silver halide in the negative as in traditional photographic processes, the hypo solution (a fixing agent rendering the film insensitive to ambient light) in the pod packet transferred the unexposed silver halide onto a positive receiving sheet. Stabilizing compounds halted the processing and created a protective layer for the print. Maxfield Parrish Jr., son of the renowned painter, worked on the design of a prototype camera with a mechanism that would evenly spread the chemical solution between the negative and positive layers.

Land recognized the potential application of chemical properties used in earlier photographic processes.2 The daguerreotype, introduced in 1839, was a direct-positive process, formed without a negative, that produced a unique image on a silver-coated copper plate. The salt print process, also introduced in 1839, yielded a negative image from which multiple positive prints could be made. This was the process on which most subsequent nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographic formats were based. Both techniques required processing outside of the camera. In 1888, when the Kodak camera put photography in the hands of amateurs, customers would send their cameras with a roll of one hundred exposed images inside to Kodak’s factory to be developed and printed.

Like the daguerreotype, the Polaroid yielded a single, positive image, and like the salt print, it required a negative to create a positive. In Land’s revolutionary invention, however, the chemical processing took place inside the camera and produced an image in only one minute. The resulting one-of-a-kind photograph lent a precious and unique quality to a Polaroid print. The almost instantaneous development of the image seemed magical: the print emerged from the camera because of the actions of the user in real time, with no delay or intervening process undertaken in a darkroom. Watching Polaroid images appear became a captivating communal activity and a new form of social exchange.3

Polaroid ads fittingly described this combination of features as a new photographic system that “telescopes all the developing, fixing and stabilizing operations of ordinary photography into a single, one-minute step that occurs automatically when you advance the film for the next picture. . . . You can have your pictures when they mean the most. You can share and enjoy the pictures together with others in the pictures.”4 Land understood that these characteristics both democratized his photographic system and set it apart from all others. He argued that “an enormous number of people who lack talent or inclination of the early arts, do have a taste for and the need for a simplified medium of artistic expression. . . . By making it possible for the photographer to observe his work and his subject matter simultaneously, and by removing most of the manipulative barriers between the photographer and photograph, it is hoped that many of the satisfactions of working in the early arts can be brought to a new group of photographers.”5

In the archives is a test photograph taken of Morse, stamped November 10, 4:11 pm, 1945. In the photograph, Morse is holding a wheel with the names of some of the chemicals used in the reagent pods. Made three years before the commercial release of instant photography, the imperfect sepia image has a mysterious quality. One can imagine the thrill Morse felt participating in early experiments with the new photographic medium only months after starting work at Polaroid.

Eudoxia Muller left Polaroid in 1946 to marry Robert Woodward, an organic chemist and consultant to Polaroid. (At Land's request, Robert Woodward had achieved [with William Doering] the synthesis of quinine in 1944, hoping that it could be adapted by the military to treat malaria during the war.) Upon her departure from Polaroid, Eudoxia wrote that Meroë—a “great talent—followed [in] my position.”6 Later in 1946 Morse assured Muller her that “the ‘climate’ and ‘environment’ of SX 70 is much the same . . . we have made good progress due to Mr. Land’s inspirations.”7

On February 21, 1947, Land introduced his instant photography process at the Optical Society of America meeting in New York. In a well-rehearsed demonstration, Land posed for a photograph taken with his new camera and a minute later separated the negative and positive sandwich to reveal a positive print. Howard Rogers, who became director of Polaroid color film research, remembered hearing gasps from the audience.8 The extraordinary invention made headlines across the nation, and Life magazine featured Land’s Polaroid portrait as “Picture of the Week.” It would take another year and a half before the system would be ready for commercial release.

In February 1948, Land received a series of patents including a “developing camera utilizing a film, another sheet material, and a fluid processing agent” and “an apparatus for exposing and processing photographic film.”9 The commercial launch of Type 40 film and Land Camera Model 95, which sold for $1.75 and $89.75 respectively, occurred on November 26, 1948—Black Friday—in Boston’s Jordan Marsh department store. The camera measured 10½ by 4½ by 2½ inches and weighed four pounds, two ounces. It featured an optical foldout viewfinder, a three-element 135-mm f/11 lens, and shutter speeds from 1/8 to 1/60 of a second. All 56 cameras sold out that day.10