Only rarely do entrepreneurs succeed in creating a product whose name then later becomes synonymous with all variations due to its fame. Edwin Herbert Land is such a case - even today, a photo taken with an instant camera is still known as: I'm taking a Polaroid.

It's the comeback of the year. More instant cameras are sold today than in the days of analog photography. One-of-a-kind photos that can't be replicated and can be held in the hand instantly provide a counterpoint in the digital age. Users have to think before they pull the trigger. And pay for the film.

The renaissance of this slow food of photography puts the spotlight on a very special man: Edwin Herbert Land, born in Connecticut on May 7, 1909.

Land is a fanatical researcher, energetic developer and creative mind. In the 81 years of his life, he will register 535 patents - for non-reflective sunglasses, 3-D glasses, night vision devices, the instant camera and many other groundbreaking inventions. His guiding principle is always, "Never start a project unless it's incredibly important and nearly impossible."

When Edwin Land studies physics at Harvard in 1926, he is therefore much less interested in the general course content than in his own research. He spends most of his time trying to figure out the secret of how light waves can be filtered. In 1929, the 20-year-old then filed his first patent: polarizing photographic sheets with which images could be developed without disturbing light reflections.

Three years later, he founded the Land-Wheelwright Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with physics lecturer George Wheelwright III to market these photo sheets. But it was the time of the Great Depression, and money was scarce. It was not until two years later that the two landed their first major customer: Kodak. Then, in 1937, eight backers with $375,000 in capital finance the change of name to a company that derives its name from the product: Polaroid. Land became president, chairman and chief developer.

Now Land can live out his urge to explore. When he impressed five million spectators with his 3-D glasses in the Chrysler Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, it earned him the title of one of the "most important inventors of the past 25 years. He also enjoys economic success. The most important customer, the U.S. Army, buys sunglasses, night vision devices, and armored telescopes. By 1941, the number of employees had risen to 240 and sales to one million dollars. By the end of the Second World War, sales had reached 16 million dollars, but then fell back to two million.

Land has to come up with something new. His three-year-old daughter Jennifer gives him an idea when she asks him why she can't see the photo he just took of her. Land later says he had "the camera, the film, and the physical composition in his head within an hour." All the processes in the darkroom were to take place directly on the inserted film. The photo would be developed within seconds.

On February 21, 1947, Land introduces the "Land Camera" at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The Model 95 went on sale in 1948. It cost a hefty 90 US dollars - in today's purchasing power, that's around 900 dollars. Polaroid quickly grows to 20000 employees. The company goes public in 1957. At the beginning of the 1970s, sales reach half a billion dollars. Land is a wealthy man. And the SX-70 model epitomizes the photography of the 1970s. The next innovation, however, is a fiasco: "Polavision," Land's 8-mm film system, is already obsolete after ten years of development by Sony's video cameras. Land himself is promoted to the presidency of the company, and in 1982 he retires from business life. He preferred to do research at the Rowland Institute for Science, which he founded in 1965, until his death in 1991. Polaroid continued to go downhill. In 2008, the company filed for bankruptcy.

But Polaroid itself is not dead. In 2010, a few enthusiasts launch "The Impossible Project." In the former Polaroid factory in Enschede, they produce film material for instant cameras. At the time, this is incredibly important to only a few photo enthusiasts and almost impossible as a business idea. But it worked nonetheless. ®

Author: Jennifer Bligh