The camera that turned waiting into magic
The SX-70 launched in 1972 as the first true instant camera. Point, click, wait for the photo to develop. Dead simple.
Before this, Polaroid cameras were fussy—you had to pull the print out by hand, peel at just the right moment, dispose of waste. Edwin Land wanted something revolutionary: one click, no hassle.
Henry Dreyfuss Associates had been working with Polaroid for years, and the SX-70 became their masterpiece. The camera folds flat like a book, then opens into a working camera with mirrors and lenses. Leather covering, mechanical precision, satisfying collapse. Pure Dreyfuss: making complex technology feel human.
The magic wasn't just technical. Watching the camera unfold, hearing the whir as the photo emerges, seeing the image gradually appear—it turned photography into performance. That same year, Polaroid commissioned Ray and Charles Eames to produce a film about the SX-70. The Eames Office called it "a system of novelties"—captivated by its mechanical poetry.
Later models got cheaper, simpler. They worked fine but lost the charm. The original SX-70 remains special—the one that made instant photography feel like watching the future arrive, one photo at a time.
"All that should be necessary to get a good picture, is to take a good picture" — Edwin Land
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