How a daughter's 'puzzle' inspired the Polaroid camera and the 'instant photo'

When inventor Edwin Land's three-year-old daughter asked why she could not see the photo her father had just taken of her, Edwin says he set about "solving the puzzle she had set me".

Four years later, on November 26, 1948, the first Polaroid camera was released commercially, and "instant photography" was born. The first cameras reportedly sold out in minutes, and the Polaroid Corporation, which Land founded, became synonymous with the "magic" camera that used self-developing film to produce a print.

One early Polaroid user recalled "gasps of astonishment from all the tourists around me" the first time he used the camera in 1954.

"It started a whole new era of photography," entrepreneur Florian Kaps told ABC. "The press went crazy; I think you can even compare it to the presentation of the iPhone many years later by Apple, because it was so revolutionary to so many fields."

Kaps says Polaroid cameras democratised photography. According to the company's own estimations, in the 1960s, about half of American households owned a Polaroid camera. More women began picking up cameras; they were used by police, in medicine, and in scientific research. 

"It really became a new tool for life," Kaps argues, adding that bypassing the censorious eyes of photography labs also kick-started a golden age of private erotic photography.

And of course, many artists wove Polaroids into their practice. 

An artistic force

In 1963, Polaroid released colour film.

"It was at this moment that the Polaroid truly came into its own, offering photographers a new palette of expressive possibilities," Ruby Mitchell writes.

Andy Warhol, perhaps the most iconic Polaroid user, said: "My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous." 

Warhol's instant portraits of celebrities became central to his work. 

"Warhol's quest for the ungainly, even the freakish, reaches its fascinating climax" in his Polaroids, Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian.

David Hockney, Maripol, Ansel Adams and Robert Maplethorpe all loved Polaroids. Many designers and filmmakers used the cameras to experiment and assess light and composition.

But the digital age almost killed Polaroid cameras. The company declared bankruptcy twice. In 2008, it announced it would stop producing instant film.

The fight to save the Polaroid

Florian Kaps's love of Polaroid led him on his aptly named "Impossible Project" to save the medium.

"In 2004, I developed my very own first Polaroid in my hands; it was the beginning of the digital revolution, and I looked at this chemical reaction in my hands slowly turning into a picture and I was blown away," Kaps says.

The Impossible Project took over Polaroid's last factory and founded a company to create film for Polaroid cameras, essentially saving the Polaroid for future generations. Rebranded a decade later, the company now sells new designs of Polaroid cameras and film.

Kaps told ABC that Polaroid's revival was led by a new generation craving analogue things you can "touch and smell".

"The main part of the magic these days is it's a real image, a chemical painting in your hands."