![]() ![]() He also advised Polaroid to hire more artists to act as consultants and advised the company to start an art collection, which he helped to grow.ĭocumenting the extent of Adams’s longstanding relationship with Polaroid, the collection also traces major developments in photography, art, and technology in the years following World War II and into the Cold War era. The bulk of Adams’s correspondence, especially in the 1950s and 60s, was with Land and Meroë Morse, who studied art history with Land’s colleague and friend Clarence Kennedy at Smith College and rose to become manager of the Black and White Research Lab at Polaroid.ĭuring the course of his consultancy, Adams tested every major camera and film Polaroid produced, from the early Model 95 to the color SX-70. Beyond his contributions to the technology, Adams acted as a spokesperson for Polaroid, encouraging his artist colleagues to try Polaroid products. He developed a practice of taking sequences of test photographs of the same subject or view with slight variations, such as in the aperture setting, developing time, or use of a filter, recording all of these details on the test photograph as well as in the letters. Along with the photos, Adams sent memos in which he recorded exposure details about the test photographs and a description of their subject matter along with additional commentary. This initial meeting led to a relationship that lasted up until Adams’s death in 1984. Baker Library Special Collection holds the nearly forty-year correspondence between Ansel Adams and the Polaroid Corporation, including Adam’s memoranda and test photographs in the Polaroid Corporation records, series IV: Photographs and correspondence of Polaroid consultant photographer Ansel Adams.Īs Polaroid sent products to his studio in Carmel, California, Adams systematically tested the films and cameras and sent stacks of test photographs back to headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He believed that the company needed to include practicing photographers in their research and development process. Impressed by Land’s work on photographic technologies, especially his vision for a “one step” camera - in which the traditional labor of darkroom photography would be done inside the camera itself - Adams proposed that he test Polaroid products. This collection includes the test photographs and memos he created working with Polaroid Corporation, the 20th century electronics company known for its pioneering photographic technologies.Īdams’s relationship with Polaroid began when he met the company’s founder Edwin Land in 1948. Under Land, The Polaroid Corporation became a model company in terms of fair hiring practices, employee relations, and community involvement.ĭuring World War II, he also developed optical and other systems for military use and proposed the retinex theory of color perception, in addition to creating cameras and films that gave instantaneous dry photographs in black and white and color.Polaroid Corporation records, Series IV: photographs and correspondence of Polaroid consultant photographer Ansel Adams, Baker Library, Harvard Business Schoolīest known for his sweeping panoramas of the Western United States, photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) also had a thriving career as a corporate consultant. Many applications were found for the Land Camera and improved camera models became available for use in aerial, real estate, and commercial and press photography. In 1948, the Polaroid Land Camera was introduced and became an immediate commercial success. ![]() ![]() The Polaroid Corporation was founded in 1937 it prospered during World War II producing filters for goggles, gunsights, periscopes, range finders, aerial cameras, and the Norden bombsight. ![]() He is best remembered for the instant one-step photography made famous by the company he founded, Polaroid Corporation.īorn in Connecticut, Land was educated at Norwich Free Academy and Harvard University. Several important achievements and milestones dating back to the ancient Greeks have contributed to the development of cameras and photography. It was originally known as the 'land camera.' It worked by t urning a knob forced the exposed negative and paper through rollers, which spread the reagents between the two layers and pushed it out of the camera. Polaroid lab (1948), Polaroid Corporation Collection, Harvard University. Polaroid Camera (1948) - History of the Camera Polaroid camera (1947) A man named Edwin Land first introduced the polaroid camera in 1947. Physicist, manufacturing executive, and inventor Edwin Herbert Land developed the first modern polarizers for light, theories and practices for applications of polarized light, improvements in infrared night-vision instruments, and polarized sunglasses and lenses. It was November 26, 1948when Land sold his fist camera, the 95 Land Camera for 89.95 which had become the prototype for all Polaroid cameras. Kodak photograph (1890), National Media Museum, Kodak Gallery Collection, Public Domain. ![]()
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