荣枯一瞬间：宝丽来公司兴衰史

    《捕捉瞬间：宝丽来的故事》（Instant: The Story of Polaroid）是一本很薄的小册子，只有192页，但它读起来却像是3本书：首先，它以充满事实的内容，极其生动地描述了埃德温•兰德（当然还包括他建立的那家令人难以置信的公司）的一生及其所处的时代；其词，它简明扼要地讲述了宝丽来公司（Polaroid）从鼎盛时期沦落至破产境地（不是一次，而是两次）的凄美故事；再次，这本书还收集了知名艺术家使用宝丽来相机拍摄的数量不多，但非常精美的摄影作品。

    克里斯托弗•波南斯撰写的这本经过充分研究、质量上乘的著作收录了安迪•沃霍尔为丽莎•明妮莉拍摄的一张绝妙照片、查克•克洛斯和罗伯特•梅普尔索普的自画像、一张大卫•霍克尼拼贴画，以及沃克•埃文斯、安德烈•凯尔泰斯和威廉•韦格曼的摄影作品。这本书还收录了几张出自安塞尔•亚当斯之手的摄影作品。1949年，当宝丽来公司首次进入摄影领域时，亚当斯被聘为该公司顾问，月薪100美元。他的建议极大地影响了宝丽来胶片和相机的外观和感官。

    科•伦特米斯特为1972年《生活》杂志（life）一篇题为《一个天才和他的魔术相机》（A Genius and his Magic Camera.）的报道拍摄的一张照片，是书中最令人回味无穷的摄影作品之一。这张照片捕捉的是兰德为一群孩子介绍新SX-70相机那一幕。这张照片刊登于《时代》杂志（Time），用于讲述SX-70相机首次亮相的封面报道。照片出自一位名为艾尔弗雷德•艾森斯塔特的后起之秀之手。

    这些头条新闻背后的故事发轫于1928年。那一年，18岁的兰德离开哈佛大学（Harvard University），着手发明世界上第一种合成偏光镜。通过与一位前教授合作，他将自己的发明转化成了太阳镜和汽车大灯制造商用以减少眩光的薄片偏光膜。

    上世纪40年代，宝丽来公司转换经营领域，为美国陆军生产了数百万副护目镜，同时还为美军飞机提供轰炸瞄准器。传说在1943年临近结束的一天，3岁的珍妮弗•兰德问她的爸爸，她为什么看不到他刚刚用禄来福来相机（Rolleiflex）拍摄的一张照片。

    兰德花了好几个小时揣摩出如何做女儿想要的东西的办法。随后的4年中，他一直在思考如何把照相机、胶片、显像剂以及他所构想的数百个其他难题有效地结合在一起。

    1947年2月，兰德在美国光学学会（Optical Society of America）于纽约举行的一个会议上首次披露了他的研究成果。《纽约时报》（The New York Times）和《生活》杂志大张旗鼓地报道了这项成果，但又过了20个月，第一部真正的相机（名为Model 95、重达4磅的笨重玩意儿）才正式上市。这款定价89.75美元的相机一上市就受到了公众的青睐。

    后来为宝丽来胶片提供负片乳胶层的伊士曼柯达公司（Eastman Kodak）也非常喜欢这款产品。柯达公司当时发表评论称，“任何对摄影有利的事物都对柯达有利。”这家公司那时绝对不相信，一款被其视为古玩的产品将会演变为一门年收入高达20亿美元的生意。

    宝丽来相机最初拍摄的照片非常小，呈褐色，并不十分稳定，绝对称不上优雅。宝丽来公司很快就学会了如何产生出清晰的黑白色图像。又过了一段时间，颜色丰富的彩色胶片问世了，笨重的第一代相机逐渐让位于最终被我们所有人视为理所当然的流线形机身。

    Instant: The Story of Polaroid clocks in at a slim 192 pages, but it manages to be three books in one: a thoroughly charming, fact-filled stroll through the life and times of Edwin Land and the incredible company he built; a brief, poignant recap of Polaroid's plunge from the heights into not one but two wrenching bankruptcies; and a small but lovely collection of Polaroid images taken by well-known artists.

    Christopher Bonanos's well-researched and well-written book features a terrific Andy Warhol photo of Liza Minnelli, self-portraits by Chuck Close and Robert Mapplethorpe, and a David Hockney collage, along with photos by Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz, and William Wegman. It also includes several photos by Ansel Adams, who signed on as a $100-a-month Polaroid consultant in 1949, when the company made its first move into photography. His recommendations strongly influenced the look and feel of Polaroid's films and cameras.

    Co Rentmeester shot one of the most evocative pictures in the book for a 1972 Life magazine story titled "A Genius and his Magic Camera." The photo captures Land putting Polaroid's new SX-70 through its paces for a group of children. The photo that accompanied Time magazine's cover story on the debut of the SX-70 was taken by an up-and-comer named Alfred Eisenstaedt.

    The story behind these headlines started in 1928, when Land left Harvard and set about inventing the world's first synthetic polarizer. He was 18. Teaming up with a former professor, he turned his invention into thin sheets of polarized film that manufacturers of sunglasses and auto headlights used to cut glare.

    In the 1940s, Polaroid shifted gears and churned out millions of pairs of goggles for the Army, along with bombsight optics for U.S. military aircraft. In late 1943, legend has it, three-year-old Jennifer Land asked her father why she couldn't see a picture he had just taken with his Rolleiflex.

    Land spent several hours roughing out ways to do what his daughter wanted and the next four years figuring out exactly how the camera, film, developer, and hundreds of other pieces of the puzzle he was constructing would fit together.

    The results were unveiled in February 1947 at an Optical Society of America meeting in New York. The New York Times and Life played it up big, but it took another 20 months before the first actual cameras -- big, bulky four-pounders called Model 95 -- made it to market. They were priced at $89.75, and the public loved them.

    So did Eastman Kodak, which signed on to provide the negative layers for the Polaroid film. "Anything that is good for photography is good for Kodak," is how the company put it at the time, never believing for a moment that a product it saw as a curio would turn into a $2-billion-a-year business.

    The first Polaroid pictures were small, brownish, not terribly stable, and anything but elegant. The company soon learned how to produce crisp black-and-white images. Rich color film appeared a little while later, and the clunkiness of the first cameras gave way to the sleek, streamlined bodies we all eventually took for granted.