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‘Not possible’ was the initial response by Polaroid’s design team to founder Edwin Land’s brief to ‘design a camera that had to fit in a jacket pocket with prints that self-develop without human intervention’. Perseverance however prevailed, and the resulting folding camera (that reputedly cost $750 million to produce) was almost instantly elevated to iconic status. Whilst modern-day digital technologies have fundamentally superseded the SX-70’s core benefits of ease, accessibility and cost-effectiveness, we would argue that this design was the true forefather of instant photography.
