Polaroid Instant Film

Polaroid instant film, on sale from 1948, came from Edwin Land’s answer to his daughter’s question about why she couldn’t see a photo at once. The film carried its own developing chemistry, so a print emerged from the camera and resolved into an image within a minute, no darkroom required. At its height Polaroid sold around a billion instant photos a year. Digital cameras and then camera phones offered the same instant feedback with no film cost, and Polaroid stopped making the film in 2008; enthusiasts (later Polaroid itself) revived production as a niche.