Land, Edwin Herbert (1909–1991)

US inventor of the Polaroid Land camera in 1947. The camera developed the film in one minute inside the camera and produced an ‘instant’ photograph.

While a student at Harvard, Land became interested in polarized light and invented the sheet polarizer, which imbedded lined-up crystals in a clear plastic sheet. This tremendous advance had implications for camera filters, sunglasses and other optical equipment, and related products. Land set up a laboratory 1932, then established the Polaroid Corporation 1937–80. His research also led to a process for 3-D pictures, ‘instant’ colour film, ‘instant’ motion pictures, and a new theory of colour perception, the ‘retinex’ theory 1977.