The Fall of Polaroid

The novelty and surging popularity of Edwin Land's development of instant cameras and film under the aegis of the Polaroid Corporation in the 1950s sent shudders down the spines of Eastman Kodak and Fuji film- two of the world's largest producers of "standard"-type cameras and film, and through these sales, built photo-finisher businesses world wide. Suddenly, the public was able to shoot, wait and see the results nearly instantly. "By 1959, Polaroid marketed a variety that could take indoor sports pictures without a flash and deliver a print in fifteen seconds. Color went on the market in 1963, followed in 1972 by an entirely new system, called SX-70, in which the positive and negative were not peeled apart. Resembling a large playing card, SX-70 pictures allowed the customer to see the images 'emerge' before their eyes" ("Land" para. 5).

Protected by hundreds of patents, instant photography flourished for over thirty years. So, what went wrong? Why the news that Polaroid ended its instant photography business? The plain and simple fact is- technology passed Polaroid by. The internet, digital cameras, photographs from cell phones- all these changed the way people took pictures. "N TODAY'S WORLD, where almost every cell phone comes with a built-in camera, there is a new definition of instant photos. As a result, an instant-photo institution is looking to redefine itself. Polaroid has announced that it will quit making instant film after it manufactures enough t

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s that could use some if its patented technology: "At the Polaroid Corporation these days, talking about old-fashioned 'instant photography' is out. The new chairman, I. MacAllister (Mac) Booth, talks instead of 'rapid access, high-quality hard copy' -- terms more evocative of computer electronics than snapshots from family vacations. Mr. Booth would like doctors, researchers and business people wanting to take and transmit pictures to think first of Polaroid" (Rifkin para 1). The report of this meeting preceded the serious troubles, of course, and the optimism turned out to be misguided. Even then, as Rifkin reported, "The areas Polaroid seeks to enter are already crowded with much more experienced rivals, but Polaroid executives expect the great demand for computer-generated pictures to yield profits" (para 4). They were wrong. The profits never materialized, not in the U.S. and not overseas. One of the major problems alluded to earlier is that management of Polaroid felt that its core customer base would remain loyal. Once some of these amateur photographers got used to instant cameras and film, even as the film and the cameras themselves improved, they would stick to instant photography. It is certainly possible that s

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