Bye bye Polaroid instant cameras, you're just not instant enough by today's standards. These days "instant" is common, demanded, and universal. Sure, the picture was magically developed and delivered in an instant, but the quality was pretty pitiful. Today's consumers expect immediate gratification with uncompromising, perfect results on a consistent basis. Poor old Polaroid just couldn't compete, so he's been retired to the land where all our used-up, expired, and forgotten junk resides: ebay. There are still plenty of Polaroid Land Camera lovers out there, collectors and fans whose nostalgia draws them to search out the plastic boxes which spit out a blurry, oddly-colored image best hastened on its way to development by the waving back and forth method, or better yet, the warming-it-up-in-the-arm-pit method, preferred by men. Edwin Land founded the Polaroid Corporation in 1937, and in 1947 released the first Polaroid Instant Camera, or Polaroid Land Camera, onto the market. The idea came from a question posed to him by his daughter, Jennifer, "why can't I see them now?" Why not, indeed, I guess he thought, and the cameras were wildly successful until quite recently, when digital cameras became the norm, and expectations of consumers changed. Polaroid doesn't produce the cameras anymore, and in February they ceased production of all instant film, shutting down 3 factories and laying off 450 workers. In this decade, there has been a 25% drop in chemical film sales of all kinds, and the market for this antiquated equipment will continue to shrink. When I was a kid, I thought people who had Polaroids were rich. My mom had one of those ancient cameras whose flash was a glass cube that attached itself onto the top of the black box, and made a sad little sound when it blew. Truth is, the majority of pictures taken by my parents back then never even made it to the developers, and we never saw the pics of cousin whomever's birthday. Years later Mom would find old rolls of film, not one single clue whose images lived in the plastic capsule, and get them developed just for fun. We'd laugh and remember what a great time it was, and remark on how things have changed since that time that was special enough to use an entire roll of film to capture, and swear we'd never let another roll of film wait like that again to be appreciated. We as a society have forgotten how to wait, and even as I write this I glance at my Blackberry looking out for the flashing red light that tells me I have an email waiting in my inbox, realizing just how impatient I have become.
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