Item #24077 Absolute One-Step Photography offprint TOGETHER WITH initial press release ephemera. Edwin H. Land.
Absolute One-Step Photography offprint TOGETHER WITH initial press release ephemera
Absolute One-Step Photography offprint TOGETHER WITH initial press release ephemera
Absolute One-Step Photography offprint TOGETHER WITH initial press release ephemera
Absolute One-Step Photography offprint TOGETHER WITH initial press release ephemera
The Inventor talks about the Social Innovation called the Polaroid SX-70

Absolute One-Step Photography offprint TOGETHER WITH initial press release ephemera

London: Headley Brothers Ltd 1974. First Separate Edition. 7 pages plus 4 pages center fold with color illustrations of chemistry of SX-70 integral film and sample images. 8 1/4 x 11 inches. Tan printed wrappers. We also include the sample of press release information released by Polaroid at the time (lacks the mentioned issue of Scientific American with the first advertisement).

We've been asked several times for more details about the ephemera in this lot. Here are more details:
1. Polaroid Handbook
46 pages. 4 1/2 and 6 1/2 inches. Illustrated. Published February 1960.
Contents:
Polaroid Pay Plan
Profit-Sharing Retirement Plan
Your Future with Polaroid
Benefits
Our Products
Your Service with Polaroid
Your Voice In Company Affairs
Your Safety
Social and Out-Of-Hours Activities
Polaroid Directory
What's Expected of You

2. Polaroid Corporation Memo
Dated September 25, 1973. 8 1/2 by 11 inches
Subject: SX-70 National Advertising
"Our national advertising for the SX-70 system is about to begin"... "Watch it happen."
Mentions ads in Scientific American, Reader's Digest, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated and newspapers.
"This 12 page insert will appear in Time and Newsweek"
Mentions television commercials with Laurence Olivier.

3. The way back. 12 page insert . (mentioned in memo and appeared in Time and Newsweek.)
11 1/2 by 8 1/2. Illustrated.

4. Polaroid's SX-70 advertising begins
Shows images of the insert (all pages), the newspaper spread advertising and screen shots of the television commercial.

5. The SX-70 Experience
March 25th, 1974. Illustrated. Color. No page numbers. 20 pages of images with an introduction and table of contents
8 1/4 by 9 1/2 inches. Near Fine. Wraps. [24077]


Edwin H. Land, the President of Polaroid, was the inventor of the in-camera self-processing photographic system. We know it as the social phenomena called the Polaroid SX-70, first released in 1973. Many of us were the subjects of the famous "click, chunk, whirrrr" followed by the magical appearance of a photograph which developed before our eyes. Gone was the necessity to send film to the lab for developing. Or as with the earlier multi-step process from Polaroid - take the image, time the film, tear it apart, and fix it all the while hoping we got it all right and captured baby Tammy's first step.

Land realized quite early that the instant gratification, instant development film camera would revolutionize picture taking for the masses. While the camera was expensive in the beginning, almost $200 plus $7 for each film pack, by 1974 (a year after release) some 700,000 had been sold. The first generation of true instant selfies became reality. You could take them one after the other with no waiting. A better chance to catch what you wanted. And then as the image developed, a family event happened. Astonishment as the picture developed in front of everyone's eyes.

In this offprint, The Royal Photographic Society reprints a speech by Edwin H. Land in May 1973 where he detailed not only some of the history, but many of the detailed technical workings of the camera for his fascinated audience. Scarce, and a piece of our cultural history, described in a technical light. "We now reproduce for the first time Dr. Land's description and illustration of the journal of the potassium ions which is such an essential part of the whole subject. Those who were present at the lecture will remember that during the evening a number of photographs of flowers, etc. were taken with the new camera and some of these are reproduced in the centre pages."

Scarce both in the marketplace and institutionally, with no copies of the offprint noted as of this listing.

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