A Lifetime in Imaging: It All Started at Polaroid

The bad news is time flies, the good news is you're the pilot
Michael Altshuler

by Skip Cohen

It's Throwback Thursday, my favorite day of the week, but rarely are my throwbacks tied to me personally. But, fifty-five years ago this week, I started my first day at Polaroid in Waltham, Massachusetts. I started at $2.89/hour. That was February 1970, and I remember Time Magazine having a cover shot of a college grad in cap and gown pumping gas. Jobs were hard to find and I had just moved to Boston. Little did I know what the future was going to bring.

I spent 17 1/2 years at Polaroid and loved the company. I still laugh at those early days working in R&D wearing a white lab coat, a slide rule on my belt, and learning the chemistry side of emulsion development. It was a fantastic company, and I stayed there all those years because of the great people I worked for and with. And in terms of bosses - I was lucky - they all gave me enough rope to hang myself but pushed a chair underneath me if the rope got a little taut!

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17 1/2 years at Polaroid - Time really does fly when you're having a good time!

While I thought of myself as a member of the photographic industry, Polaroid was my training ground for everything from engineering to HR, Customer Service, Marketing, and Sales—even a few years of International when I traveled overseas every three weeks for over two years as the International Consumer Services Manager.

In '87, I was the photo specialty dealer manager (all of Polaroid's camera stores) when I got a call from a headhunter who wanted to know if I knew anybody who wanted to be president of a small camera company. I thought it was a prank call and almost hung up. Three months later, I joined Hasselblad USA as president, and that's when my career in photography really started.

From Hasselblad, to the Internet, to WPPI and Rangefinder Magazine, to starting my own company in 2009, the journey continues to be remarkable. I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people in photography, and it's all thanks to so many of you! The friendship and guidance of so many amazing people all along the way are responsible for the smile on my face—and in my heart right now!

It's for me to believe so many years have passed since that first day at Polaroid. 

One day, you're 17 and you're planning for someday.
And then quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today.
And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.
John Green