Common people, voyeurs, artists and photographers loose one of their icons of 20th century. No, this is not Michael Jackson. He is still in one piece. We are talking about - Polaroid.
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The story began long time ago when one girl ask his father: "Why can't I see them now?" Now, we could say few words about our music icon, but we will leave him. For the moment.
Although Polaroid company halted the production of its instant cameras one year ago, few days ago it announced closing of its last three factory situated in Massachusetts, USA, the Netherlands and Mexico. Polaroid company was on the top in 1991 when its profit of camera sale reached almost three billions dollars. But, gallop of technology, especially on their field, meet them unprepared. Polaroid didn't manage to switch to digital photography on time. Unfortunate coincident or just less of vision cost company a lot of money and Polaroid announced bankruptcy in October 2001.
Innovation of permanent picture, instantly developed by dry chemical process inside the camera, made people very happy for more than 60 years. First Polaroid camera was sold to the public in November, 1948. Edwin Land, father of the curious girl from above, invented it and register it in August 29, 1946 by the title: Apparatus for Exposing and Processing Photographic Film, patent number: 2435720. Polaroid Corporation got its wining product and swam in money earned on the simplicity of use, for years. Kodak and Fuji never became its serious concurrent in an instant camera sales.
Polaroid made some experiments with other instant products. They also manufactured a type of instant movie camera. Polavision had a short history because of a few big disadvantages. The first was the low film speed, the second was necessity for special player to view the developed movie. So, Polaroid left its idea very soon. The Koreans even tried to merge a Polaroid with a mobile phone, but HS-RSS never saw the market.
The beauty of an instant picture is in the phase when emulsion on a picture is not yet stabilised. Lot of artists and photographers used that stage to express their creativity. During the 60's and 70's many famous pictures, lots of record covers, and posters appeared, as a unique witness of unrepeatable moment of the time. And that uniqueness was true beauty.
The ultrasound picture of an unborn baby was always the priceless instant picture even if you didn't recognise almost anything. We loved that picture, carry on all-round and showed it to everyone we know. Because, doctor took the picture and said: "This is your baby", we are happy. At that time nobody mention puberty.
What situation required an instant photo? In a purpose like passport picture, for ID cards, for police or fire purpose and similar situation. Today, digital cameras are used for that kind of situations and private instant pictures we can look at the monitor of a camera or on a computer. Having a picture in hand immediately after taking it, well, on that we must wait a little and visit a photographer’s studio. One little magic moment passed.
And where in this Polaroid story is our Mickey J.? He is known as a person who doesn't like to be photographed. Maybe photographers shoot him too much with Polaroid and we know that those pictures vanish through the years. His music talent doesn't, fortunately. ■