Instant photography

The invention: Popularly known by its Polaroid tradename, a camera
capable of producing finished photographs immediately after
its film was exposed.
The people behind the invention:
Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991), an American physicist and
chemist
Howard G. Rogers (1915- ), a senior researcher at Polaroid
and Land’s collaborator
William J. McCune (1915- ), an engineer and head of the
Polaroid team
Ansel Adams (1902-1984), an American photographer and
Land’s technical consultant
The Daughter of Invention
Because he was a chemist and physicist interested primarily in
research relating to light and vision, and to the materials that affect
them, it was inevitable that Edwin Herbert Land should be drawn
into the field of photography. Land founded the Polaroid Corporation
in 1929. During the summer of 1943, while Land and his wife
were vacationing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with their three-yearold
daughter, Land stopped to take a picture of the child. After the
picture was taken, his daughter asked to see it. When she was told
she could not see the picture immediately, she asked how long it
would be. Within an hour after his daughter’s question, Land had
conceived a preliminary plan for designing the camera, the film,
and the physical chemistry of what would become the instant camera.
Such a device would, he hoped, produce a picture immediately
after exposure.
Within six months, Land had solved most of the essential problems
of the instant photography system. He and a small group of associates
at Polaroid secretly worked on the project. Howard G. Rogers
was Land’s collaborator in the laboratory. Land conferred the
responsibility for the engineering and mechanical phase of the project
on William J. McCune, who led the team that eventually designed the original camera and the machinery that produced both
the camera and Land’s new film.
The first Polaroid Land camera—the Model 95—produced photographs
measuring 8.25 by 10.8 centimeters; there were eight pictures
to a roll. Rather than being black-and-white, the original Polaroid
prints were sepia-toned (producing a warm, reddish-brown color).
The reasons for the sepia coloration were chemical rather than aesthetic;
as soon as Land’s researchers could devise a workable formula
for sharp black-and-white prints (about ten months after the camera
was introduced commercially), they replaced the sepia film.
A Sophisticated Chemical Reaction
Although the mechanical process involved in the first demonstration
camera was relatively simple, this process was merely
the means by which a highly sophisticated chemical reaction—
the diffusion transfer process—was produced.
In the basic diffusion transfer process, when an exposed negative
image is developed, the undeveloped portion corresponds
to the opposite aspect of the image, the positive. Almost all selfprocessing
instant photography materials operate according to
three phases—negative development, diffusion transfer, and
positive development. These occur simultaneously, so that positive
image formation begins instantly. With black-and-white materials,
the positive was originally completed in about sixty seconds; with
color materials (introduced later), the process took somewhat longer.
The basic phenomenon of silver in solution diffusing from one
emulsion to another was first observed in the 1850’s, but no practical
use of this action was made until 1939. The photographic use of
diffusion transfer for producing normal-continuous-tone images
was investigated actively from the early 1940’s by Land and his associates.
The instant camera using this method was demonstrated
in 1947 and marketed in 1948.
The fundamentals of photographic diffusion transfer are simplest
in a black-and-white peel-apart film. The negative sheet is exposed
in the camera in the normal way. It is then pulled out of the
camera, or film pack holder, by a paper tab. Next, it passes through a
set of rollers, which press it face-to-face with a sheet of receiving material included in the film pack. Simultaneously, the rollers rupture
a pod of reagent chemicals that are spread evenly by the rollers
between the two layers. The reagent contains a strong alkali and a
silver halide solvent, both of which diffuse into the negative emulsion. There the alkali activates the developing agent, which immediately
reduces the exposed halides to a negative image. At the
same time, the solvent dissolves the unexposed halides. The silver
in the dissolved halides forms the positive image.
Impact
The Polaroid Land camera had a tremendous impact on the photographic
industry as well as on the amateur and professional photographer.
Ansel Adams, who was known for his monumental,
ultrasharp black-and-white panoramas of the American West, suggested
to Land ways in which the tonal value of Polaroid film could
be enhanced, as well as new applications for Polaroid photographic
technology.
Soon after it was introduced, Polaroid photography became part
of the American way of life and changed the face of amateur photography
forever. By the 1950’s, Americans had become accustomed
to the world of recorded visual information through films, magazines,
and newspapers; they also had become enthusiastic picturetakers
as a result of the growing trend for simpler and more convenient
cameras. By allowing these photographers not only to record
their perceptions but also to see the results almost immediately, Polaroid
brought people closer to the creative process.