Dye Diffusion Transfer Process: The SX-70 Polaroid

"I think this camera can have the same impact as the telephone on the way people live." - Edwin H. Land, co-founder of  the Polaroid Corporation (Saturday Evening Post 1975) 

The dye diffusion transfer process, also known as "instant film" had made its first appearance in black and white in the 1940s by the Polaroid Corporation, but instant film had not become such an important cultural artifact as we know it now until the SX-70 camera model and its new no-mess color film hit the market in 1972.

Image of an SX-70 (Jim 2009)

What made the SX-70 so popular and unique, and led to it becoming embedded in American culture for decades was that it removed the additional step of sending undeveloped film to a third party for one's images as one would have to do with Kodachrome. In addition, the SX-70 made instant photography even easier than with previous models by removing the necessity of having to touch sticky prints, paper wrappers, and chemical-laden negatives to throw away (Time Magazine 1972).

The Polaroid company has an interesting history, starting from the co-founder Edwin H. Land. He was born in 1926 near Norwich Connecticut and was an 18 year old Harvard student by 1928, but dropped-out to pursue his own ideas and experiments with polarized light (Time Magazine 1972). This resulted in Land setting up the Polaroid Corporation in 1937 "in a former tobacco wholesaler's building on Boston's Columbus Avenue with the plan of selling Detroit's automakers on the idea of putting his polarizers in the sun visors and headlights of all new cars. Land was convinced that the reduced glare would make night driving much safer. But manufacturers noted that the polarizing sheets deteriorated when exposed to heat, and they showed little interest" (Time Magazine 1972). Land also marketed Polaroid nonglare sunglasses in that same year, which fared much better with consumers and is a feature on many sunglasses even today. The company did not see much growth until World War II, by means of the production of goggles, glasses and filters, but the boost lasted only until the war ended in 1945 (Time Magazine 1972). 

Polaroid taken by Edwin Land (Saturday Evening Post 1975) 

In 1947 the company lost $2,000,000 and Land and his engineers began producing cameras using the peel-and-develop film, first in black-and-white, and then in color (Time Magazine 1972, Edwards 2012). After the SX-70 was developed, the company continued to make additional models and upgraded them. Land lived on Brattle Street and worked 2 miles away in Cambridge, MA by 1972, and he died in 1991, ten years before the company's first bankruptcy filing in 2001 (Time Magazine 1972, Edwards 2012).

The camera itself "[contains] 200 transistors and a complex of moving mirrors, light sensors, gears and solenoids," and the film was "a layered sandwich of chemicals that Polaroid insiders called 'the goo'" and "sheathed in unscratchable plastic and backed by a thin coating of titanium" (Time Magazine 1972, Edwards 2012). The SX-70 measures about about 11/10 inches x 4 1/5 inches x 7 inches, weighs 26 ounces, and in 1972 each picture cost approximately 45¢ per picture (Time Magazine 1972).

Below is an illustrated schematic of SX-70 film during exposure.

(Jim 2009)

The camera and film became so popular that by 1976 Kodak was developing its own version of instant film (Time Magazine 1976). While it is true that each Polaroid photograph is unique, much like a Daguerreotype now, Time Magazine in 1976 reported that "copies of SX-70 prints can be made, but originals must be mailed to the company for reproduction, a process that takes about a week or longer." That the entire process, from taking the photograph to film development, is completely automatic and entirely different from previous versions of instant film, which previously had to be done manually, appealed to both amateur photographers and professional photographers. Known artists like Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe used them often.

Andy Warhol, Easter Eggs, 1982 (ArtSTOR)

Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Moody, 1984 (ArtSTOR)

The crossover between scientist and artist was not entirely one-sided. In 1977 Land had an exhibit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts where he created "one of the world's largest cameras, a room-sized blowup of his old invention that in only a minute can make a full-color, full-sized copy of a masterpiece [producing] a huge negative, 102 centimeters by 203 centimeters (40 in. by 80 in.), from which an equally big print is made by the Polaroid process" (Time Magazine 1977).

The creative process of the SX-70 did not begin with the consumer, but started with the building of the camera itself: "A Polaroid engineer had the unusual insight one afternoon that the motors used to run his son's toy race cars might work [...] the next day Polaroid researchers invaded a Boston hobby shop and eventually modeled the SX-70 motor on an electric-train engine that they spotted there (Time Magazine 1972). Another aspect that was unique about the camera and film pack was that a wafer-thin battery was packaged inside every container of SX-70 film for the camera to operate, which seems to have been a problematic aspect later on.

A brief overview of Polaroid cameras until the SX-70 illustrates why this camera became so popular:

• The First Polaroid Land camera goes on sale in 1948
• The "Model 95" (weighing nearly 4 lbs.) produced sepia-toned pictures of varying quality to major profits
• Black and white film in 1950 
• A camera with an automatic exposure system in 1960 with 15 second pictures
• Color film and film cartridges in 1963
• The low priced Swinger in 1965
• The low priced Colorpack II in 1969 
• And another low priced Square Shooter in 1971 

(Time Magazine 1972)

While the Polaroid Corporation since the 1970s-1980s have been hit with multiple technology, marketing, and financial blows which ultimately saw the demise of all progeny brought forth from the SX-70 by 2008, there are been various attempts by the company and third parties (see: http://shop.the-impossible-project.com/shop/ ) to keep instant film from completely dying out. Hobbyists can fill the void with Fujifilm's Instax and Instax Mini if finding and procuring a usable SX-70 is too much trouble.

Additional Resources


- An original television advertisement from the 1970s about the SX-70
- http://www.smithsonian.com/polaroid Some photographic results of how famous artists used the SX-70

Bibliography

Edwards, Owen. "ONE-STEP WONDER." Smithsonian 42, no. 11 (March 2012): 40-41. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2013).

"Getting the Big Picture." Time 110, no. 13 (September 26, 1977): 92. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2013).

"Instant Battle: Kodak v. Polaroid." Time 107, no. 17 (April 26, 1976): 69. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2013).

Jim. Jim's Polaroid Camera Collection. Last modified May 06, 2009. http://polaroids.theskeltons.org

"Polaroid's Big Gamble on Small Cameras." Time 99, no. 26 (June 26, 1972): 92. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2013).

"TO CAPTURE A MOMENT IN TIME." Saturday Evening Post 247, no. 1 (January 1975): 62-67. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2013).

Platinum and Palladium Prints

"The First Frost" from "Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads" by Peter Henry Emerson, c. 1885.  Hosted by MoMA.

The photosensitive properties of platinum salts were first reported by Ferdinand Gehlen in 1830.  Over the following decades, a number of researchers experimented with the interaction of light and platinum salts in combination with other chemicals, both in solution and on paper; among them were Dobereiner, Herschel, and Hunt.  The early researches did not find a reliable way to fix a platinum-based image, in part because the easiest platinum salt to obtain (platinum chloride) is not easily reduced to metallic platinum.  In the 1850s, formulas for using platinum salts for toning of initially silver-based images were developed by a number of researchers, and the resulting platinum-toned images were found to be more resistant to fading than un-toned silver images.   By 1859, C.J. Burnett had produced palladium or possibly platinum prints using sodium chloroplatinate as a fixing agent.

"Woman with Lily", Eva Watson-Schutze, c. 1903.  Hosted by George Eastman House.

The first patent for a platinotype process was given to William Willis in 1873, but the process that eventually became commercially used was patented by him in 1880.  This process is known as the "hot bath" method; the paper is coated with a mixture of ferric oxalate and potassium chloroplatinate, exposed in direct contact with a negative, and then developed with a solution of warm potassium oxalate.  Other variants on the process have been, and still are, used, including printing-out papers as well as the developing-out process described above.  Palladium has very similar chemical properties to platinum, and has been used more or less interchangeably with platinum in the photographic process, depending largely on the relative costs of the two metals at a given time.

Platinum prints are, like salted paper prints, made on uncoated paper without baryta or emulsion layer, the photosensitive components being absorbed into the surface fibers of the paper.  Willis did attempt a process involving a gelatin-silver emulsion treated with platinum salts after exposure, but found that the platinum's effects on the gelatin itself made the results inconsistent.

"Printing: Foot and Steam Power" by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1899-1900.  Hosted by MoMA

Commercial platinum photographic papers were available  from the 1880s to the 1930s; some artists willing to prepare their own papers have been doing platinum and palladium prints on their own since then, and from 1988 to 1999, the Palladio company offered a machine-coated palladium/platinum paper.  Platinum and palladium prints are extremely fade-resistant, and allow for very fine gradations of mid-tones.  These properties have appealed to art photographers since the process first became available.  Because the platinum and palladium salts are not sensitive to the lower-frequency end of the visual spectrum, the papers can be prepared, exposed, and developed without a true dark-room, using lower-intensity indoor lighting when working with the sensitized paper and using either sunlight or an ultraviolet light-box to expose the paper through the full-sized negative.  This property has made platinum and palladium prints appealing to artists who want to experiment with developing their own prints.

Video of the process of palladium print making by Giorgio Bordin


Video of the process of platinum/palladium print making by Simone Casetta, narrated in Italian with English subtitles
 


Platinum and palladium prints can be identified by their generally matte appearance; the visibility of paper fibers under magnification; their un-faded appearance, with fairly saturated blacks and a wide range of mid-tones; and, if they are mounted in a folder or album, the orangeish mirroring of the image on the facing page owing to the image material catalysing the breakdown of the paper.  Prints done on hand-prepared paper also tend to have dark brush-marks surrounding the image area; machine-made commercial platinum papers would not have this feature.  Palladium prints tend to have a somewhat warmer color tone than platinum, but the difference is subtle and the metals have often been used in combination.

Sources:

Hafey, John and Shillea, Tom.  The Platinum Print.  Graphic Arts Research Center, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1979.  Web.  February 27, 2013.  <http://www.kimeia.com/pdf/history.pdf>

"Platinum Print".  Wikipedia.  Wikimedia Foundation, 2013.  Web.  February 27, 2013.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_print>

Ware, Mike.  "The Eighth Metal: the Rise of the Platinotype Process".  Photography 1900: The Edinburgh Symposium.  National Museums of Scotland and National Galleries of Scotland, 1993.  Web.  February 27, 2013.  <http://www.mikeware.co.uk/mikeware/Eighth_Metal.html>

We Do The Rest: The Kodak

The Kodak No.2.  Retrieved from http://www.vintagephoto.tv/no2kodak.shtml

We Do The Rest: the Kodak

In the late 1880’s and into the 1890’s, no single company more aggressively sought to bring photography to the common person than Eastman Dry Plate & Film Company.  The company introduced a number of small cameras, emphasizing convenience and shedding the need for chemistry and cumbersome equipment.

In 1888, Eastman Dry Plate & Film Company released the first Kodak camera.  For $25, the package included enough sensitized film for one hundred 2.5-inch circular images, a case and a shoulder strap (Time-Life 154).  When the photographer was done taking photos, he or she sent the camera, film still inside, back to Eastman.  There the film could be developed and prints made, and the camera loaded with a fresh roll of film, for $10.  The camera measured 6.75 x 3.75 inches and weighed 22 ounces, and its circular image frame created circular images. (Welling 321).  The shutter was fixed at 1/25 second so there was no need for long exposure time or a tripod (Hedgecoe 28), and the camera lens had a focal length of 8 feet, so anything further away would display reasonable clarity (Time-Life 154).

Over 13,000 Kodaks had been sold by September 1889, and by October of that year Eastman reported they were processing 60-75 rolls of film every day (Welling 321).  These numbers increased dramatically with major public events.  Welling cites the New York centennial celebration as an example, in which Eastman received 900 Kodak cameras for processing in a single week.

Retrieved from http://www.oldbike.eu

The Kodak’s ease of use and freedom from the processes previously associated with developing prints made a dramatic impact on the photographic market.  (Gustavson 130.)  Kodak came to be associated with convenience and these early cameras, the first to use roll film, brought photography to the masses.  The Kodak name became globally identified with amateur photography.  As photography increased in popularity in American and Europe, photo magazines and camera clubs came into being (Craven 176).

By late 1889, George Eastman had introduced four more Kodaks (Gustavson 130).  The first Kodak was retroactively named the No. 1.

In 1891, Eastman introduced the Model A Daylight Kodak, a camera with special film that could be loaded in daylight.  Also in 1891 came the Ordinary Kodak, Models A, B, and C, which featured a plain wooden box and increased in complexity with the model.  The Model A was billed as the “Young Folk’s Kodak.” (Gustavson 136).

An attractive “pocket” model, the Pocket Kodak, was introduced in 1895.  It was available in red or black leather, fitted in the palm and could use either roll film or plates.

Retrieved from http://www.oldbike.eu

The Competition:

Eastman is considered the biggest name in bringing photography to the masses, but the company was far from the only player on the scene.

The Detective Camera

 During the 1890’s, miniature cameras became very popular, as did designs to conceal their presence, such as a walking stick, a revolver (which used small plates that were loaded into the cylinder), a watch, or a book (Hedgecoe 29).  The police in London were the first to use these surreptitious cameras for surveillance, hence the dubbing “detective camera”.

1889: The Luzo

The success of the Kodak led many manufacturers to adopt roll film.  The Luzo, designed by Henry Redding, used the Kodak film but the design was altered for a smaller box.  The shutter was powered by a rubber band and its tension could be varied.  J. Robinson & Sons of London, who built the Luzo, did not offer the mail-in processing service offered by Eastman.  The photographer was left to her own devices (Gustavson 134).

1891: The Kamaret

In 1891 the Blair Camera Company of Boston introduced the Kamaret, a wooden box camera with a leather covering.  The Kamaret could produce twenty, fifty, or one hundred images on either dry plates or roll film, and the images measured 4x5 inches.  Smaller than the comparable No. 4 Kodak, the Kamaret sold for $40 (Gustavson 137).

1892: The Bull’s Eye

The Boston Camera Manufacturing Company introduced the Bull’s Eye in 1892.  The original Bull’s Eye was the first to employ a printed backing on the film and a small celluloid window in the camera so the frame numbers could be seen.  In 1895, Eastman produced a camera called the Bullet with a similar feature.  That same year, Eastman bought the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company and the right to produce the Bull’s-Eye camera, which sold for $7.50 (Gustavson 138).

The Photake.  Retrieved from http://collectiblend.com/Cameras/Chicago-Camera/Photake.html

ca. 1896: The Photake

Manufactured by the Chicago Camera Company, the Photake consisted of a cylindrical metal box four inches in diameter, with flashy copper swirls on a black ground.  The camera held five dry plates, arranged along its circumference, and the photographer rotated the cover to advance to the next plate.  Packaged in a wooden box with six dry plates and the supplies to make twelve prints, the Photake sold for $2.50 and was marketed as “An ideal Christmas gift.” (Gustavson 139.)

Works Cited

Craven, George M.  Object & Image: An Introduction to Photography.  3rd ed.  New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1990.  Print.

Gustavson, Todd.  Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital.  New York: Sterling, 2009.  Print.

Hedgecoe, John.  The Book of Photography.  2nd ed.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.   Print.

Time-Life Books, Editors.  The Camera.  New York: Time-Life Books, 1970.  Print. 

Welling, William.  Photography in America: The Formative Years: 1839-1900: A  Documentary History.  New York:        Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1978.  Print.

Cyanotype

Henri Le Secq. Farmyard Scene. GEH.

The cyanotype process was discovered by the physical scientist, inventor, and architect of early photographic processes John Herschel in 1842 (Ware, Herschel's Cyanotype: Invention or Discovery 371). The cyanotype is a contact-printing process that produces an image in Prussian blue when the sensitized material is exposed to ultraviolet light. One of several fetching aspects—besides the striking Prussian blue—of the cyanotype is that the chemicals used are essentially harmless and inexpensive and a fixed image can be achieved with a water bath.

            The cyanotype process differs from other processes of the time in that it was not a silver-nitrate process and instead is the effect of UV on ferric salts. Chemists had long known about the chemical creation of Prussian blue since its discovery was first published in 1724. The story of its discovery is worthy of an essay itself, but in short the artist Heinrich Diesback of Berlin discovered it in 1704 when he purchased some tainted potash from a notorious alchemist and used the ash in an attempt to  make a crimson pigment (Ware, Prussian Bleu: Artists' pigment and Chemists' Sponge 612). 

Herschel, John. Lady with a Harp. 1842. The Oxford History of Science Museum.

            In 1842 Herschel was in efforts to create colored images. With the assistance of a colleague in the Royal Society—Albert Smee—he was given the bright red complex salt, potassium ferricyanide. To his astonishment when Herschel exposed a paper coated with an aqueous solution of potassium ferricyanide to the summer sun his paper turned Prussian blue (Ware, Prussian Bleu: Artists' pigment and Chemists' Sponge 617).  Herschel furthered his discovery—again with the help of Smee—with the addition of ammonium ferric citrate to the photosensitive solution, substantially shortening the exposure time.

Chemistry

Ammonium iron (III) citrate and potassium ferricyanide:
UV causes a photochemical redox reaction in the iron complex, whereby the iron (III) is reduced to iron (II) and the citrate is oxidized initially to acetone di-carboxylic acid:
2Fe³⁺(aq) + C(OH)COOH(CH₂COOH)₂(aq) à 2Fe²⁺()aq) + CO(CH₂COOH)₂(aq) + CO₂(g )+2H⁺(aq)
The iron (II) then couples with ferricyanide to precipitate Prussian blue in a density proportional to the quantity of photons absorbed:
Fe²⁺(aq) + [Fe^III(CN)₆]^3-(aq) à Fe^III[Fe^II(CN)_6]^-(s) (Ware, Prussian Bleu: Artists' pigment and Chemists' Sponge 617).
Herschel’s Original formula consisted of two solutions. Solution A was 20g of ferric ammonium citrate to 100 ml of water and Solution B was 16g potassium ferricyanide to 100 ml of water. These two solutions were then mixed in equal proportions to create the sensitizer (James 151).

People of Note

Pillow made up of 30 cyanotype images on cloth sewn together. GEH

The cyanotype was never used as frequently as any of the silver-nitrate processes and was mostly used by amateur photographers. Today the cyanotype is a popular process among amateur photographers because it is inexpensive and easy to learn.

Atkins, Anna. Photographs of British Algae. 1843. Detroit Institute of Arts.

            Anna Atkins was the first person in history to use a photographic process to catalogue a collection of objects and publish them in book form. In 1843 Atkins published British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (Naef 24). Atkins’ cyanotype photograms are spectacularly rich both scientifically and artistically. Atkins’ gift was to choose a subject—algae—both simple and incredibly diverse, what her photograms revealed was a glimpse of both truth and beauty.

Bosse, Henry. Pine Bend. 1891. Minneapolis Institute of Arts Collection.

            In the 1870s Henry P. Bosse—trained as a cartographer, draftsman, painter, and engineer set off to document the 850 miles or shoreline and the accompanying States along the Mississippi river, using only the cyanotype process (Naef 64). The cyanotype process was then currently commercially available and was being utilized to duplicate materials—maps and architectural materials. Bosse travelled aboard the riverboat General Barnard—the very same boat that Twain rode around the same time (Naef 64).  As Bosse travelled down river he took photographs of the river, the cities and towns along side, and the lives of the people that utilized the Mississippi.

Preservation

A sensitized cyanotype solution is applied directly to the medium so it lacks a binding layer and avoids binder-related deterioration issues. Overall the cyanotype has less degradation issues than silver materials in the 19^th century.

            The paper support used has the inherent flaws of the time period it came from and may experience foxing and can be brittle.

B.T. Babbitts Soap. GEH

            The Prussian blue will fade when exposed to light but will partially revive when stored in the dark. Images will also fade when stored in alkaline conditions; therefore alkaline-buffered enclosures should not be used (Reilly 43).

Link to me creating a cyanotype using Herschel's process

Works Cited

James, Christopher. The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes. 2nd Edition. New York: Delmar Cengage Learning, 2009.

Naef, Weston. Photographers of Genius at the Getty. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004.

Reilly, James M. Care and Identification of 19th-Century Photographic Prints. Rochester: Eastman Kodak Company, 2009.

Ware, Mike. "Herschel's Cyanotype: Invention or Discovery." History of Photography 22.4 (1998): 371-379.

—. "Prussian Bleu: Artists' pigment and Chemists' Sponge." Journal of Chemical Education 85.5 (2008): 612-621.

Autochrome Process

The Autochrome Process



             The Autochrome process, fittingly invented by Auguste and Louis Lumière (whose name translates to “light” in English), was the first practical color photographic process.  The two Lumière brothers, who were innovators in a variety of fields including medical research, also invented the cinématographe, an early motion picture camera (Wood).  In 1895, they created a film, “La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière,” (literally, workers leaving their self-titled factory), which is considered to be the first motion picture (Britannica).  Despite their typical forward thinking, they seem to have badly miscalculated motion film’s future, preferring instead to turn their attention back to photography.

Lumière, Auguste. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

             Fortunately, this led to the further development of the Autochrome process, which created images that are today rare and considered unique in their beauty.  First patented in 1904, the process was not commercially available until 1907, when the Lumières demonstrated it at the Photo-Club de Paris (Wood).  Autochromes, like other forms of color photography, made use of basic color principles to combine primary colors and thereby create an accurate reflection of the whole spectrum.

Sunday at Rye Beach, New York. Genthe, Arnold. between 1911-1942.

LOC Prints and Photographs Division

             Unlike other processes, however, the first step for making Autochromes involved potatoes.  Potato starch, ground into tiny particles as small as thousandths of a millimeter were dyed into red-orange, green and violet (Wood).  A mixture of these particles was then spread over a glass plate, which had already been varnished to make them stick.  Charcoal dust spread over the mixture prevented light from passing between the potato grains.  The whole mixture was then flattened and coated with a silver-bromide emulsion (Britannica).

           

             Once placed in the camera, light rays would pass through the starch grains, at which time the colored particles would absorb their matching colors and allow other light to pass through to the emulsion.  The process would first produce a black and white negative.  This would then be developed into a positive, resulting in a glass transparency with a similar color effect to the dots of pointillist painting (Ritzenthaler). 

             Although most photographers at the time were used to processes that seem arduous to us today, there were several drawbacks to the Autochrome process.  These included:

• An extra long exposure time due to the large amount of light that the starch absorbed
• The uniqueness of each image (like a daguerreotype) makes it special, but doesn't allow for multiple images to be made one time
• Have to be held up to light to be properly viewed; a tool commonly used for this at the time was the diascope.  Today other resources can be used, like the backlighting seen below 



Some of National Geographic's collection of autochromes, backlit for viewing

Stephen Crowley, The New York Times

• Because of the exposure time and labor involved, most autochromes featuring people were posed, adding to the painterly effect, and lacking some of the journalistic qualities that photography was beginning to value

American Indian standing beside a horse. Genthe, Arnold. between 1906 and 1928.

LOC Prints and Photograph Division

             Despite these drawbacks, which prevented the Autochrome process from becoming a predominant method for photography, seeing color images today dating back to the earliest part of the 20th century can be an incredible experience, particularly if someone is unaware that color photography even existed at this time.  Below is the original page from a National Geographic feature on color photography in 1914, which featured the first color photograph they ever published. 

Flower Garden in Ghent, Belgium. Paul G. Guillumette, 1914. National Geographic

 

National Geographic has a collection of over 15,000 autochromes, some prints of which were put on exhibit in 2010 at the Steven Kasher gallery in New York:

http://www.stevenkasher.com/exhibition/24/press_release/

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/archive-17/

Works Cited:

Crowley, Stephen. "Autochrome's Enduring Allure." New York Times, 2010.

Encyclopedia Britannica. "Lumiere Brothers (French Inventors)."

Ritzenthaler, Mary Lynn and Diane Vogt O'Connor. Photographs: Archival Care and Managment. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2006.

Wood, John. The Art of the Autochrome: The Birth of Color Photography. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993.