Years ago, the idea of how a Polaroid worked needed to be explained to the general public simply because the public’s understanding how photography worked was so much different from everything else. To that end, Polaroid needed to put out an ad to the public to explain how their image taking process worked. You see, for many years people believed that you needed to shoot a photo, bring it into the darkroom and then get your negative or positive print back.
But the Polaroid promised to deliver an end to the darkroom so to speak.
Of course, we all (that use instant film) know that 60 seconds was an approximation and that that all depends on temperature of the surroundings. And over the years it took more time to explain to people how they worked. Here’s a commercial from the 1950’s below. If you do not need the video below, please visit our desktop or standard mobile website.
The image was created with a Polaroid Land Camera which for a while took medium format or large format film. Those cameras are still available on eBay and can be converted to use more modern films. But for a photo to be ready to share and view only 60 seconds after it was snapped? That was crazy. These days, the older generations that grew up with that stuff typically can’t wait that long–though there are some exceptions.
These days, most millennial photographers perhaps grew up not really knowing how film photography worked and that’s why so many flock to it.
These days, all the film for the more modern Polaroid Land Cameras is discontinued. Fujifilm 100C and 3000B can still be purchased though for a lot money as the supply really dwindles down. A few folks are trying to revive it, and I hope that they do. Otherwise, the idea of a photographic process that is anything other than digital pixels on a display could be all that anyone knows with the exception of some cunning hackers who know how to use chemicals in a darkroom.