Includes bibliographical references and index.

In a world where nearly everyone has a cellphone camera capable of zapping countless instant photos, it can be a challenge to remember just how special and transformative Polaroid photography was in its day. And yet, there's still something magical for those of us who recall waiting for a Polaroid picture to develop. Writing in the context of two Polaroid Corporation bankruptcies, not to mention the obsolescence of its film, Peter Buse argues that Polaroid was, and is, distinguished by its process - by the fact that, as the New York Times put it in 1947, 'the camera does the rest'. Polaroid was often dismissed as a toy, but Peter Buse takes it seriously, showing how it encouraged photographic play as well as new forms of artistic practice.