????《捕捉瞬間：寶麗來的故事》（Instant: The Story of Polaroid）是一本很薄的小冊子，只有192頁，但它讀起來卻像是3本書：首先，它以充滿事實的內(nèi)容，極其生動地描述了埃德溫?蘭德（當(dāng)然還包括他建立的那家令人難以置信的公司）的一生及其所處的時代；其詞，它簡明扼要地講述了寶麗來公司（Polaroid）從鼎盛時期淪落至破產(chǎn)境地（不是一次，而是兩次）的凄美故事；再次，這本書還收集了知名藝術(shù)家使用寶麗來相機(jī)拍攝的數(shù)量不多，但非常精美的攝影作品。

????克里斯托弗?波南斯撰寫的這本經(jīng)過充分研究、質(zhì)量上乘的著作收錄了安迪?沃霍爾為麗莎?明妮莉拍攝的一張絕妙照片、查克?克洛斯和羅伯特?梅普爾索普的自畫像、一張大衛(wèi)?霍克尼拼貼畫，以及沃克?埃文斯、安德烈?凱爾泰斯和威廉?韋格曼的攝影作品。這本書還收錄了幾張出自安塞爾?亞當(dāng)斯之手的攝影作品。1949年，當(dāng)寶麗來公司首次進(jìn)入攝影領(lǐng)域時，亞當(dāng)斯被聘為該公司顧問，月薪100美元。他的建議極大地影響了寶麗來膠片和相機(jī)的外觀和感官。

????科?倫特米斯特為1972年《生活》雜志（life）一篇題為《一個天才和他的魔術(shù)相機(jī)》（A Genius and his Magic Camera.）的報道拍攝的一張照片，是書中最令人回味無窮的攝影作品之一。這張照片捕捉的是蘭德為一群孩子介紹新SX-70相機(jī)那一幕。這張照片刊登于《時代》雜志（Time），用于講述SX-70相機(jī)首次亮相的封面報道。照片出自一位名為艾爾弗雷德?艾森斯塔特的后起之秀之手。

????這些頭條新聞背后的故事發(fā)軔于1928年。那一年，18歲的蘭德離開哈佛大學(xué)（Harvard University），著手發(fā)明世界上第一種合成偏光鏡。通過與一位前教授合作，他將自己的發(fā)明轉(zhuǎn)化成了太陽鏡和汽車大燈制造商用以減少眩光的薄片偏光膜。

????上世紀(jì)40年代，寶麗來公司轉(zhuǎn)換經(jīng)營領(lǐng)域，為美國陸軍生產(chǎn)了數(shù)百萬副護(hù)目鏡，同時還為美軍飛機(jī)提供轟炸瞄準(zhǔn)器。傳說在1943年臨近結(jié)束的一天，3歲的珍妮弗?蘭德問她的爸爸，她為什么看不到他剛剛用祿來福來相機(jī)（Rolleiflex）拍攝的一張照片。

????蘭德花了好幾個小時揣摩出如何做女兒想要的東西的辦法。隨后的4年中，他一直在思考如何把照相機(jī)、膠片、顯像劑以及他所構(gòu)想的數(shù)百個其他難題有效地結(jié)合在一起。

????1947年2月，蘭德在美國光學(xué)學(xué)會（Optical Society of America）于紐約舉行的一個會議上首次披露了他的研究成果。《紐約時報》（The New York Times）和《生活》雜志大張旗鼓地報道了這項成果，但又過了20個月，第一部真正的相機(jī)（名為Model 95、重達(dá)4磅的笨重玩意兒）才正式上市。這款定價89.75美元的相機(jī)一上市就受到了公眾的青睞。

????后來為寶麗來膠片提供負(fù)片乳膠層的伊士曼柯達(dá)公司（Eastman Kodak）也非常喜歡這款產(chǎn)品。柯達(dá)公司當(dāng)時發(fā)表評論稱，“任何對攝影有利的事物都對柯達(dá)有利。”這家公司那時絕對不相信，一款被其視為古玩的產(chǎn)品將會演變?yōu)橐婚T年收入高達(dá)20億美元的生意。

????寶麗來相機(jī)最初拍攝的照片非常小，呈褐色，并不十分穩(wěn)定，絕對稱不上優(yōu)雅。寶麗來公司很快就學(xué)會了如何產(chǎn)生出清晰的黑白色圖像。又過了一段時間，顏色豐富的彩色膠片問世了，笨重的第一代相機(jī)逐漸讓位于最終被我們所有人視為理所當(dāng)然的流線形機(jī)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.