Polaroid Land Camera

The self-developing “Land Camera” – named after American scientist and Polaroid Corporation founder Edwin Land who invented a process for self-developing photography in the 1940s – was manufactured between 1948 and 1983.

Instant colour photographs were introduced in 1963 via a process that involved pulling two tabs from the camera; the second pulled the film sandwich through the rollers to develop out of the camera.

A more complex process eventually involved a negative containing three layers of emulsion sensitive to blue, green, and red.

Underneath each layer were dye-developing molecules in their complementary colours of yellow, magenta, and cyan. When light struck an emulsion layer, it blocked the complementary dye below it (eg: when blue struck the blue-sensitive emulsion layer, it blocked the yellow dye, but allowed the magenta and cyan dyes to transfer to the positive, which combined to create blue).

Polaroid Land cameras became some of the most popular cameras in the world.

In 1972, an integral film was introduced that did not require the user to time the development or peel the negative from the positive. The Polaroid SX-70 was the first camera to use this film.

When Edwin Land retired from Polaroid in 1982, his name was dropped.

In 2001, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy protection, the result of what many believed was the failure of the company to fully embrace digital technology.

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