The Polaroid Company was founded in 1937 by scientist and inventor Edwin H. Land. Who started out making polarized sunglasses. It was the out brake of WWII that then veered the company towards military applications producing many products including a night viewing device using infrared light. It was after the war that Polaroid turn towards instant photographic cameras.
As the story goes, Edwin was with one of his grand kids taking pictures when the child asked him why they couldn’t see the picture right away and that they had to wait days to see it. The idea of seeing the picture right after it was taken gave Edwin the drive to come up with a new idea of film and the creation of instant photography took off with his inventions.
After several decades of success through instant film all good things came to an end, among botched ideas and with the advent and growth of digital photography Polaroid was pretty much finished.
On October 11th 2001 the Polaroid Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection and was taken over by Bank One’s One Equity Partners and charged the name to Polaroid Holding Company. Since the take over from Bank One’s the company has changed hands several times and has been with PLR IP Holdings since May 7th 2009.
As of now Polaroid has diversified into several avenues and still has claim to some photographic products with digital applications and instant prints. The cameras takes images via a digital sensor and is then printed on photographic paper out of the camera, not by the use of film.
