The topic of the video is one of the most ground-breaking, disruptive, and commercially successful consumer technology products of the mid-twentieth century. Get a look into the Polaroid backstory, the rise and fall of the company, and the life and career of its co-founder.
This video starts with a very familiar story of how Todd Dominey's mother actually found their family camera from the nineteen-seventies on the top shelf of her closet. While she may have seen it as possible clutter to get rid of, her son's interest in all things photography made him the perfect recipient for the cool nostalgic relic.
The gift of a Polaroid XS-70 became a gateway to learning more and more about the history of instant photography. A journey that Dominey has now put into a great video and shared with all of us. The story about the invention of polarized lenses, by Edward Land, is well worth the price of admission. I had never put two and two together on the connection between the names and their origin.
It is very easy to take where we are today in the world of photography for granted. There have been countless individual actions and decisions that have shaped what we know as modern photography. Learning what the outside factors were present to influence the timing and direction of some of these key moments in history are incredibly interesting to this photography nerd. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Amazing video! I loved it! Thanks!
Agreed. Glad you enjoyed.
Very nice video. I knew much of the Polaroid story already but this added a lot. If I recall they were also trying to develop (pardon the pun) instant movie film as well and that research was costing millions ultimately contributing to the decline. If that money had gone into digital video instead, the various players in the world of photography may be very different today. Both Kodak and Polaroid not seeing (again a bad pun) the potential of digital technology due to their tunnel vision and law suits just goes to show that every business model has its bell curve and those who don't diversify or adapt are doomed to fail eventually.
They did actually make an instant movie film, but it was horribly low res. It seemed to work in some spin-off process similar to color laser printers, because the images were made using a raster line process of some sort. You could easily see the raster lines when projecting the image. Weird stuff actually.