Sources on Instant Photography

To contextualize Instagram, whose very name references the advent of "one-minute" mass photography, a history of the instant photograph from Kodak to Polaroid is needed. This story ends up linking very neatly, as Kodak's early prowess is bridged to Polaroid's dominance in the 1970's & 80's through film.

Biblio Deets

 * Buse, Peter 2008. "Surely Fades Away" Photographies,1:2, 221-238.

Content

 * Polaroid retained Ansel Adams as a consultant (?!) - "Polaroid's relationship with Adams simply crystallizes a problematic of value that runs right through the history of instant photograph: its simultaneous association with both high and low levels of social and cultural distinction" (222)


 * "Polaroid images, generated quickly and consumed on the spot, have been judged against the principle that living fast means dying young" (222)


 * "instant photography: an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement results in a consumer product so simple and efficient in its uses that it comes to be thought of as the 'degree zero' of photographic skill" (224)

Polaroid Timeline

 * 1947 - "One Step" process announced
 * 1948 - Consumer camera released - Model 95 Land Camera (with Sepia film)
 * 1950 - B & W Film.
 * 1963 - Color photography
 * 1972 - Integral (self contained) Polaroid - 3.5 by 4.25 inch image - "absolute one step"
 * 1977 - Mass market "one step" - best selling camera worldwide for four years


 * Buse looks at reception in photo mags


 * Ansel Adams pens "Polaroid Land Photography" (1963) to legitimate the product and defend it in "serious" photography circles [I'd love to track this book down]
 * Preceded by "Pictures in a Minute" (1956) and followed by John Dickson's "Instant Pictures" (1964)


 * "Each in their own way, these user's guides emphasize the range of skills necessary to successfully operate a Polaroid Land camera, that is, they convey the very complexity of the whole process" -> Very Instagram (multi app)


 * Polaroid's marketers were sticking to the tried and tested path already laid out by Kodak, which, as Don Slater points out, 'heavily targeted women and children as prime consumers of snapshot photography, ... as symbols of the extraordinary ease of taking pictures'" (228)

Mass Consumption

 * 50% of US Households had an instant camera in 1983 -> According to Richard Chalfen (229)
 * 1948 - Polaroid Model 95 -> $89.75 (hardly CHEAP!) vs. Kodak Brownie Hawkeye for $5.50 (229)
 * 1972 -> Launch of the SX-70 accompanied by major promotion -> film by Charles Eames


 * "It is gratifying ... that with the ever increasing simplicity of our cameras combined with the present characteristics of the film, the population of aesthetically competent photographers is expanding rapidly. Thus some 15 billion pictures after we first expressed out hope ... our dream is being realized" - Edwin Land 1977 (232)


 * "The same basic ambition - to open the possibilities of 'creative expression' to a broader portion of the population - is echoed by Polaroid literature throughout its history" (232)

Kitsch

 * "When mass-cultural forms (the baby or pet photograph) begin to have pretensions of aesthetic value, they risk being labeled as kitsch. Indeed, if, as Tomas Kulka suggests, kitsch happens when mass forms pretend to the aesthetic distinction of the elite forms they have displaced, then the whole Polaroid-Landian project, with its uneasy oscilliation between low and high levels of distinction, begin to look like a monumentally kitschy enterprise" (233)

Biblio Deets

 * McCrum, Sean 1991. "Snapshot Photography." Circa, No. 60, pp. 32-36

Content

 * "The snapshot phenomenon has brought to the fore a problem for any professional - that there is a way of making images creatively which does not require the ethos of a professional's 'guild' training, equipment or exclusivity." (32)


 * On Snapshots -> "They are fully a part of the history of photographic practice and images, the relationship of photography to other media, the social needs which photography's changing technology met, and the credibility of photography as a self-sustaining medium" (32)


 * Baudelaire anti-photog "this class of uneducated and dull minds that judge things only according to their physical shapes" -> technique only view of photography (33)

Kodak History

 * 1881 - "Eastman introduced a camera loaded and sealed in the factory with 100 exposure film. The unopened camera was returned for processing. The total cost was $25"
 * 1900 - "Kodak introduced the Box Brownie, with fixed lens and aperture, which was sold for $1, using a roll of film cost 15c" (35)


 * "Before the development of the snap-shot camera, there had been no basic divergence of techniques, equipment or images, between 'professional' and 'amateur'" (35)


 * "Snap-shots now become important because no other medium is as inclusive in terms of price, ease of use, and quantity." (35)


 * Part of the impact of 36 emprints lies in their bulk in a wallet, and leafing through them. Part lies on showing them to other people, and their appreciation of what is being circulated, often in a sequence originated by the photographer. This is a social activity, different from peer-group interest within a sales environment. Snap-shots are not saleable. Viewers know photographer and subject. That is what is discussed, not the quality of an image, although that may be mentioned as a secondary issue" (35) -> VERY INSTAGRAM


 * "Snap-shots usually do not involve conscious image-making. They exist to record subjects, not to consciously subsume them into an image's structure. They are taken by people who do not have the 'knowingness' of professional/amateur training." (36)

Polaroid: Dreams to Reality

 * Blout, Elkan 1996. "Polaroid: Dreams to Reality" Daedalus, Vol. 125, No. 2, pp. 39-53

Content



 * Polaroid organized in 1937


 * Edwin "Din" Land entered Harvard 1925, left a year later.


 * "Land had an idea in 1944 that would prove to be not only the company's immediate salvation, but the making of its future. Photographing the scenery on a vacation to Santa Fe in late 1944, Land was asked by one of his daughters, 'Why can't I see picture right away?' Characteristically, Land thought a minute and then said 'why not?'" (42) -> MYTHIC IDEA ORIGIN


 * In an effort to make color photography for Instant Cameras, Polaroid partnered with Kodak. "Land had developed technical associations with some Eastman Kodak people in Washington during the war, and it seemed natural for Polaroid to turn to Kodak. Because a number of the high-level research people were intrigued by the idea of producing instant color photographs, Polaroid quickly reached an agreement with Kodak" Kodak would basically make the film (44)


 * Polaroid starts making its own films, cut ties with Kodak. (48)


 * Land on cover of life, "A genius and his magic camera" (49)


 * 1977 -> "a pending suit against Eastman Kodak for patent infringement; Kodak had introduced an instant camera and film in 1976 that was too much like Polaroids" (50)


 * Land's Digital Vision -> "He felt that Polaroid's field was instant photography, and if that franchise could be combined with electronic imaging, Polaroid's position in the photography industry would be both consolidated and markedly strengthened. Unfortunately, his vision was not generally supported within the company, and the project was later dropped" (52) -> WHY POLAROID FAILED?

How Kodak Missed the Digital Photography Revolution

 * Lucas Jr., Henry and Goh, Jie Mein 2009. "Disruptive Technology: How Kodak missed the Digital photography revolution" Journal of Strategic Information Systems 18, pp. 46-55.

Content

 * The digital camera combined with information and communications technologies (ICT), specifically the capabilities of the computer to store and display photographs, and the Internet to transmit them, transformed the major customer processes associated with photography" (46)


 * 1986 -> "Kodak invented the first megapixel sensor capturing 1.4 million pixels to produce a high-quality 5 x 7 print." (49)
 * 1990 -> Photo CD System (not successful as many didn't have cd-rom drives)
 * Seven restructurings from 1983 - 1993.
 * 2002 -> buys Ofoto, online picture service "signaling greater commitment to digita photography" (49)


 * 2003 -> First year when worldwide digital cameras outsold film models (51)


 * "Kodak invested heavily in digital photograph but middle managers and the culture of the organization made it impossible for the company to capitalize on that investment. When confronted with a rare, discontinuous change from technology, senior management in a firm faces the daunting task of changing the organization to embrace the new technology" (54) -> Pretty much a summary of Christensen arguments about disruptive technology in Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change

Older Photography

 * On Talbot
 * Daniel, Malcolm. "William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tlbt/hd_tlbt.htm (October 2004)


 * On Daguerre & Niepce
 * Daniel, Malcolm. "Daguerre (1787–1851) and the Invention of Photography". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm (October 2004)

Polaroid on Instagram

 * "#polaroid" returns 1,177 photos
 * "#kodak" returns 252 photos
 * "#dog" returns 61,000 +
 * "#cat" returns 95,000 +
 * "#cathedral" returns 1,013
 * "#camera" returns 7,500
 * "#football" returns about 1,500
 * all as of 5.5.2011