Today, most of us carry supercomputers in our pockets that happen to also take instantly-viewable pictures.This is something that even the dumbest phones do, meaning that we can reasonably draw the conclusion that photographic capability has become a basic feature of everyday carry, a necessity of 21st century life.
Despite the unwashed masses of just-plain-bad photographs clouding the digital landscape, photography itself remains as important as ever so we can retain and disseminate information as history unfolds. In a sense, the more instant, the better — unless it comes at the cost of image quality. The invention of photography is on par with the printing press or with language itself in that all three allow us to communicate within our own time as well as preserve The Way Things Were in frozen silence. And no invention made vivid preservation more convenient than the instant camera.
Instant Memories
This year, the iconic Polaroid SX-70 turns 50 years old. This was the first truly instant SLR camera, an engineering marvel containing over 300 transistors. Every film pack had a battery inside, so in theory, no moment would go uncaptured.
Polaroid began producing instant-film cameras in 1948, but for the first 25 years or so, the developing process was quite involved. With the advent of the SX-70 in 1972, one could freeze a moment in time…
