Here Come The Warm Jets

Like the Polaroid SX-70 Land camera and Concorde, the U-2 spy plane's spare, singular design has aged insanely well. Even though the first test flight was held in 1955, the glider-like fuselage looks completely contemporary: it could as easily have been drawn up yesterday by Marc Newson. Designed by Kelly Johnson and Lockheed for Cold War high-altitude reconnaissance, the U-2 was first rejected by the Air Force before catching the attention of a civilian review panel that included inventor, industrialist and 20th century American super-genius Edwin Land of Polaroid. He successfully lobbied CIA director Allen Dulles to sponsor development and construction of the plane, which 60 years later is still in chic, stylish service.

Resurrecting Polaroid. Maybe.

The New York Times has run a couple of interesting articles this week concerning my favorite camera company Polaroid. The slow decline and ultimate financial failure of Polaroid's instant camera and film business was almost inevitable with the advent of digital photography. Still, there are a lot of people out there who love Polaroid photography for reasons more subtle and numerous than mere convenience, its competitive disadvantage against digital technology be damned. As the Times reported this week, a handful of scientists in the Netherlands and an Austrian entrepreneur are attempting to restore Polaroid's abandoned (and almost landfill-bound) manufacturing equipment and return instant film to the market. Article here.

The possibility of returning my SX-70s to active service is very exciting and I wish them great success in this venture. Dr. Land, I think, would be delighted. However more advanced and ubiquitous digital photography inevitably will become, for many people instant photography holds a unique and durable charm. Hopefully there's still room in the marketplace for it.

An expansive gallery of Polaroid photographs, submitted by readers, is posted on the New York Times here. It's definitely worth looking at.