Instant Photography History: Polaroid and the SX-70

Polaroid began as a small optics company in the 1930s and became the world’s best-known maker of instant photography. Its founder, Edwin Land, introduced the first commercial instant camera in 1948 and the folding SX-70 in 1972. The company went bankrupt in 2001 and again in 2008, but instant film survived and is still sold today.

This account follows the main developments, using the broad outlines agreed by museum and company histories. Where sources differ on details, the text says so.

Edwin Land and the early company

Edwin H. Land was an American scientist and inventor. He developed a way to make polarizing film in the 1930s, which could reduce glare and was used in sunglasses, filters and scientific equipment. The company he founded, which dates to 1937 and was later called the Polaroid Corporation, grew first on those products and then on military optical work in the Second World War.

The story of the instant camera is often told through a family anecdote: Land’s young daughter asked why she could not see a photograph immediately after it was taken. Accounts vary in detail, but the idea shaped the research that followed.

The first instant camera, 1948

Land announced the instant process in 1947. In 1948 the Polaroid Model 95 went on sale in Boston. It was a folding camera that produced a sepia print in about a minute. The system worked by passing the exposed negative and a positive sheet through rollers, which spread a layer of processing chemistry between them. The print peeled apart from the negative after development.

It was a commercial success. Over the following decades the company produced black-and-white film, then Polacolor, its first color peel-apart film, in 1963.

The SX-70, 1972

The SX-70 was a different kind of camera. It was a folding single-lens reflex that opened out of a flat body, and it used an integral film in which the image developed inside a single white-framed print, without a peel-off layer or waste. The photographer pressed a button, and the picture ejected and slowly emerged in front of the eyes.

It was introduced in 1972 and was one of the most admired consumer products of its time. Land presented it personally at the company’s meetings, and it became a symbol of the company’s design ambitions. Its film formed the basis of later integral systems, including the familiar square-frame prints.

Polaroid and artists

Artists took to the medium. The SX-70 film could be manipulated while it was still developing: pushing the emulsion with a stylus, for example, distorted the image. The American artist Lucas Samaras made a well-known series of such manipulated Polaroids in the 1970s. The company also encouraged artists with equipment, film and an artist support programme, and its large-format 20 x 24 inch camera, first built in the 1970s, was used by photographers for portraits and studio work.

Polaroids, gum prints and woodcuts sit side by side on the portfolio page of this site, which shows how instant film sits among other art-photography processes. Exhibition listings that include photographers using these processes appear on the exhibitions page.

How instant film works

Early peel-apart film was a sandwich: a negative layer, a positive sheet and a pod of reagent between them. Pulling the film through the camera’s rollers burst the pod and spread the chemistry evenly. Dyes or silver then moved from the negative to the positive, forming the image. In integral film such as the one used in the SX-70, all the layers sit inside a single sealed frame, with an opaque layer that shields the image while it develops. The result looks simple, but it required years of chemistry research. Because the film had to develop reliably in daylight, outside any darkroom, the chemistry and the opaque shielding layer were central design problems for the company.

Later cameras and formats

Polaroid continued to launch cameras through the following decades. The OneStep, introduced in 1977, was a simple point-and-shoot that sold in large numbers. The 600 film format arrived in 1981 with faster film and became the best-known consumer type. Competitors also entered the field: Fujifilm launched its Instax line in 1998, and it remains a major maker of instant film. Format names, sizes and compatibility between cameras and film are complicated, so check the manufacturer’s current guidance before buying film for an old camera.

Keeping and displaying Polaroids

Instant prints are physical objects and age like any other. Light, heat and humidity can fade or discolor them, and early film types behave differently from later ones. Museum conservators generally recommend storing prints in a cool, dry, dark place, in enclosures made for photographs, and avoiding long exposure to sunlight. Where a print is valuable, a conservator or a museum’s guidance is the best source of specific advice.

Decline and bankruptcy

By the 1990s and 2000s, digital cameras replaced instant film for snapshots. Polaroid filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, and again in 2008. In 2008 the company announced it would stop making instant film, which many photographers regarded as the end of an era.

The revival

A group of enthusiasts, known as The Impossible Project, bought equipment from the closing Polaroid plant in the Netherlands in 2008 and began producing new instant film. The brand later became Polaroid Originals in 2017 and returned to using the Polaroid name in 2020. Camera models, film types and availability change, so current details should be checked with the manufacturer.

Instant film has since found a new audience that likes physical prints in an age of screens.

Instant photography and the art world

Beyond snapshots, instant film entered museum and gallery collections. Photographers valued the single unique print, the immediate feedback in the field, and the physical qualities of the film: its colour palette, soft focus and tonal range. Because there was no negative to reprint, each Polaroid was a one-off object. This became part of the appeal for artists who also worked in hand-made media such as printmaking and alternative photographic processes, and several art museums hold Polaroid collections. If you want to follow how these ideas connect with other processes, the portfolio material on this site shows instant film alongside prints made by hand.

Why it matters today

Instant photography shaped how people think about the photograph as an object, and it still sits comfortably beside hand-coated processes such as gum bichromate printing. For background on an artist whose work spans several of these methods, see the biography page.

Frequently asked questions

Who invented the Polaroid camera?

Edwin Land and his company developed the first commercial instant camera, the Model 95, which went on sale in 1948.

What was special about the SX-70?

It was a folding single-lens reflex camera that used integral film. The print developed in front of the photographer without any peel-off waste.

Is Polaroid film still made?

Yes. After the original company stopped making it, a successor business restarted production, and instant film is sold today under the Polaroid name.

Why did Polaroid go bankrupt?

The rise of digital photography removed the main reason to buy instant film. Debt and falling sales led to the 2001 bankruptcy filing, and the 2008 filing followed the financial collapse of the group that then owned the company.