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Instant: The Story of Polaroid

Led by the visionary Edwin Land, Polaroid grew from a 1937 garage start-up into a billion-dollar pop-culture phenomenon. Instant by New York magazine editor Christopher Bonanos tells the story of Land’s unique invention, Polaroid’s first instant camera, its meteoric rise in popularity and adoption by artists such as Andy Warhol, and the company’s eventual decline into bankruptcy and its unlikely resurrection in the digital age:

(I should, of course, make clear that as much as I am fascinated by Polaroid cameras, Instant is published by Princeton Architectural Press, who are also distributed in Canada by my employer Raincoast Books. But while I am on the shill, I might as well mention Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography another P A Press titlewhich was published this earlier month. Korab was Eero Saarinen’s on-staff photographer. Fast Company has a slideshow of some of the stunning images from the book. You should take a look).