Those of us over a certain age remember cameras that used film: you loaded film in the camera, you clicked open the shutter, for a fraction of a second the film was exposed to the image, and then you had to develop the film (or, in the case of most of us, have someone develop it for us) and make prints. Some of us will also remember Polaroid cameras, which were a big deal because the film was self-developing – you just had to wait a few minutes to see the photograph, and in later versions the film developed in seconds.
In the 1980’s Kodak introduced its own version of instant photography, and eventually lost what was until then the largest patent infringement verdict in US history, something like a 600 million dollar judgment. Then in the early 2000’s came digital photography, and that killed most of the market for traditional film and decimated the market for Polaroid.
But, like many technologies that lose popularity, instant film photography never completely disappeared, and apparently it has now made comeback, in much the same way that vinyl records have seen a resurgence in recent years. How do I know this? Because when my daughter had a few hours off from her base recently, we picked up some film for a Fuji instant film camera. Cellphones are not allowed the command center where she works, but with the instant film camera she and her buddies take a daily photograph each time they complete a 12-hour shift, white-out any potentially confidential information from the background, then later, away from the command center, take a photo of the redacted instant photo and share that with their friends.