70 Years of Instant Photography
70 Years of Instant Photography
February 21, 2017
Polaroid Land Camera Model 95
© Daderot/Wikimedia Commons
On 21 February 1947, the Harvard drop-out, inventor and entrepreneur Edwin H. Land demonstrated the world’s first instant camera during a meeting of the Optical Society of America in New York. His system, consisting of camera, film and developing chemicals, took around one minute to produce a finished black-and-white photograph.
In the following year, fifty-seven units of the Polaroid Land Camera Model 95 were offered to the public at the Jordan Marsh Department Store in Boston in the lead-up to Christmas. Every single camera (priced at $89.75) and all available film sold out the same day.
Polaroid went on to produce a total of around one-and-a-half million units of Land’s 95, 95A and 95B models – making the company’s name forever synonymous with instant photography.
In the following year, fifty-seven units of the Polaroid Land Camera Model 95 were offered to the public at the Jordan Marsh Department Store in Boston in the lead-up to Christmas. Every single camera (priced at $89.75) and all available film sold out the same day.
Polaroid went on to produce a total of around one-and-a-half million units of Land’s 95, 95A and 95B models – making the company’s name forever synonymous with instant photography.
Polaroid Land Camera Model 95
© Daderot/Wikimedia Commons