Welcome to Daily TWiP, your daily dose of all the holidays and history we couldn’t cram into The Week in Preview.

Never underestimate the impact a small child’s question can have on the future of photography. Today (May 7th) we celebrate the birth anniversary of Edwin H. Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera. He was born in 1909 in Bridgeport, Conn.

Land was first inspired to experiment with instant photography when his three-year-old daughter asked him why she had to wait to see a picture of herself that had just been taken. He demonstrated his prototype (at that time called the Land Camera) on Feb. 21, 1947, and the camera became available to the public on Nov. 26, 1948.

57 cameras were made available for the camera’s public debut at Jordan Marsh department store in Boston. Land’s Polaroid Corporation thought this would be a sufficient number and allow them enough time to produce a second run. The novelty of instantly capturing holiday memories far outweighed any issues the high price point may have raised – all 57 cameras flew off the shelves during the first day of demonstrations.

The instant camera may have gone the way of the buffalo due to the advent of digital photography, but Land used his polarizing filters (an integral part of instant photography) in other devices as well. His polarized 3D glasses continue to entertain moviegoers, and polarizing filters are also used in laptop screens and sunglasses to reduce glare.

Daily TWiP appears Monday through Saturday courtesy of The Week in Preview. Read more of both at www.nashuatelegraph.com/columnists/weekinpreview.

Keep track of Daily TWiP, The Week in Preview, Tete-a-tete, and Teresa’s general ramblings at http://twitter.com/TeresaInPreview.

– Teresa Santoski