The rise and fall of Polaroid Corp. and its wondrous technology is one of the great business stories of the 20th century. Polaroid was the Google of its time: the hot stock, the place the smart people wanted to work, headquartered in the most socially and technologically progressive city in the country. Cambridge, if you can believe it.
Polaroid’s ruin was complete and spectacular. The Globe and many other publications chronicled its grisly extinction, shuttered factory by shuttered factory, massive layoff by massive layoff. The slow-moving tsunami of digital photography wiped Polaroid from the map. Seven or eight years ago, I proposed a short biography of Land to an editor who was commissioning books about American entrepreneurs. The turn-down was gentle: “Thank you, Alex, but no one has any idea who this man is.’’
Now the strangest thing is happening. Like vinyl records, the Polaroid photograph is enjoying a modest comeback. Whether it succeeds is anyone’s guess. What’s driving the resurgence, in part, are the distinctive and inimitable qualities of the Polaroid color palette. “The color fields looks less like photographs and more like paintings,’’ says Grant Hamilton, an Iowa-based photographer who works extensively with an SX-70 Alpha One that he bought on e-Bay for $30.
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The other allure is genuine instant photography. Yes, you can see digital pictures immediately, but holding them and passing them around is another thing. I use various Internet services to make digital prints, but I don’t receive them for a week or more. Printing at home looks easy in the Hewlett-Packard ads, less so in reality.
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At least two companies believe there is life left in the defunct brand. In Holland, a small band of technologists, entrepreneurs, and photography geeks who call themselves the Impossible Project - the name derives from a famous Edwin Land quote, “Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible’’ - bought a Polaroid film factory on the day it was to be closed, and are trying to get production back on its feet. They hope to be producing new film packs within a few months.
Someone else has their eye on the Polaroid franchise - Polaroid itself. A Boston-based company, Gordon Brothers, owns the Polaroid name and patents with a Canadian partner, and they are planning to relaunch some products, maybe a camera and definitely some film. “There is clearly still a following,’’ says Gordon’s president, Stephen Miller. “The balance sheet was broken, but the brand wasn’t,’’ he continues. “This is one of only four or five brands that has 100 percent awareness, like McDonald’s or Coca-Cola. People around the world want to see us succeed.’’
That last paragraph is particularly interesting. There’s been a lot of news about Polapremium and the Impossible Project, but so far Polaroid itself hadn’t made a lot of noise about reviving the film and cameras themselves.
