Some know Polaroid for its polarized lenses (glasses and others), but for many, it is also the “pola”, the instant photo, even if today the presence of the brand is no longer as important and the competition has become established (notably with Fuji).

Since the late 1940s, the magic of Polaroid has touched millions of people at one point or another in their lives. For its creator, Edwin Land, it was just a few seconds with his 6-year-old daughter that would change his life, when she asked him, during a family outing, why she couldn’t immediately see the photo he had just taken from her. This simple and innocent question will open the door to decades of innovation.

The first model (95, marketed from 1948) was a real brick, heavy and bulky, but capable of producing an image in less than 1 minute !

As with Minolta, there is no shortage of innovations, but I think the most remarkable was the design in the 80s of the pack integrating the film and the battery. Heresy today given the pollution generated, it was a small revolution at the time !

Note : The “pola” was for many years a great success with professional photographers, particularly in the fashion world, where the instantaneity of the process made it possible to check in a few seconds whether the light settings, the pose, etc. were good, before printing expensive film.

In 2008, Polaroid gave up due to lack of sales. But a group of “fans” does not agree and decides to take over one of the film production factories in the Netherlands. They created the “Impossible Project” brand and restarted production. In 2016, a device was even produced, the I1, to keep the myth alive.

In 2017, Polaroid rose from its ashes and offered new products, more modern, but still faithful to the fundamentals of the brand.

Obviously, digital quickly took precedence over the silver snapshot (still alive however), which today only targets a few minor market segments, (and is no longer really silver in fact, with the new papers “zink”) without being able to claim more, the quality of the rendering is no longer even up to the standard of the first smartphone. There remains the nostalgia, boxes with a quirky look, a very particular rendering, and the possibility of immediate sharing of a small, very concrete memory, which you can even stick on the wall or the fridge !

For the fans, it is always possible to find expired original films (with very random results), but also 600 format for older models, the most recent ones having an internal battery and being able to work with the I-type format, whose pack does not have a battery.

Here I will present to you some remarkable pieces from my collection.