The Man Who Revolutionized Photography in an Instant
When Edwin Land’s 3-year-old daughter asked why she couldn’t see a photo of herself right away, he developed the answer
Digital photography provides us with immediate gratification: We instantly see photos on phones, tablets and computers. Before that, conventional photographic methods required developing negatives and printing them as photographs — until “instant photography” came along. A bridge to digital photography, instant photography was a miraculous breakthrough, and it was just one of the accomplishments of Edwin Land, who held 533 U.S. patents, second only to Thomas Edison.
The “Light Years”
Before inventing instant photography, Edwin Land found light polarization fascinating. Basically, polarization is a phenomenon that lets only some light waves in while blocking others, thus reducing glare. Natural polarizers existed but they were large and costly. Even at the age of thirteen, Land wondered if he could create synthetic polarizers to reduce the nighttime glare of automobile headlights.
Land studied physics at Harvard University but left shortly after enrolling to conduct his own experiments with polarization. In 1929, the young Land applied for a patent and by 1930, he found a…
