‘Light, color and shadow'

“Crush & Pull with Hands & Penlights” (Polaroid color prints), by Hartford-based photographer Ellen Carey, in her show “Struck by Light,’’ at the New Britain (Conn.) Museum of American Art, July 20 to Jan. 28

The museum says:

“Since the early 1990s, artist Ellen Carey (b. 1952) has created experimental and abstract works that defy photographic conventions. Struck by Light represents the largest survey of Carey’s innovative photo-objects and lens-based artworks. Spanning 30 years of her prolific career, the exhibition includes examples of her Photography Degree Zero (1996–2023) practice of Polaroid 20 X 24 lens-based images—including Pulls and Rollbacks—as well as her Struck by Light (1992–2023) series of camera-less photograms—Dings and Shadows—inspired by the earliest examples of paper photography. Collectively, the works trace Carey’s enormous contributions to the field of photography through her pioneering explorations of light, color and shadow, and are drawn from the collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art and the artist.’’

Polaroid Land Camera Model 95, the first commercially available instant camera. It went on the market in 1948. The “Land’’ for Edwin Land, inventor of the camera and the founder of Polaroid Corp., in Cambridge, Mass.

Dare to fail

“Dr.” Edwin Land presenting the Polavision home movie system, in1977.

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.’’

— Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991) scientist and founder of Polaroid Corporation, founded and based for many years in Cambridge, Mass. (It’s now based in Minnesota.)

He was best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corp. for inventing inexpensive filters for polarizing light, in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.

For decades, he was probably the best known figure in Greater Boston’s world renown high-technology sector. He was always called “Dr. Land,’’ although he never got a college undergraduate or advanced degree. Later in his career, though, Harvard gave him an honorary doctorate for his scientific and business achievements.

Polaroid Land (name for Mr., Land) Camera Model 95, the first commercially available instant camera, in 1948.

Meeting as a 'restatement'

Polaroid 80B Highlander instant camera, circa 1959

“I find each new person whom I meet a complete restatement of what life and the world are all about.’’

— Edwin Land (1909-81) inventor and the founder (in Cambridge, Mass., in 1937) of Polaroid and long considered the leading statesman of New England technology