Bureaucracy and the Polaroid SX-70
Submtted to Technology and Culture
[1] . J. leR. d’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of
Diderot, tr. R.N. Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995,
originally 1751), pp. 122-127. D. Diderot, Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industy: Manufacturing and
the Technical Arts in Plates Selected from "L'Encyclopedie, Ou Dictionnaire:
New York: Dover, 1993)
The Development and Character of a Tightly-Coupled
Technology: The Polaroid SX-70
I wish to describe
what might be called a tightly-coupled
technology and indicate features that likely are more generally present. The
technology of a camera and a film specifically for it, the Polaroid SX-70, is comparatively well documented
in the open and the patent literature. When going through that literature, I
felt much as did d’Alembert and Diderot, as they asked workers how they did
their work and then diagrammed the processes.[1]
For the SX-70, the level of detail,
the revelation of less-productive directions, and the motivations were it seems
ready to be observed.
I want to give a more nuanced view of tight-coupling, and
to take an historical example and in analyzing it to find some generic features
of such tight-coupling. I should note that developing loosely-coupled versions
of tightly-coupled systems is often taken as “modernization.” But there is
always the temptation to install some tight coupling in the name of
customization or to gain greater efficiency in a narrow but crucial direction.
The SX-70
as a Technology
Photography developed in its first 125 to 150 years
to offer interchangeability of film, camera, lens, developing and printing
processes, and printing papers. Manufacturers would like to convince consumers
to stay within a brand, perhaps to ensure quality and compatibility, surely to
achieve greater control of price competition. This is still the case in the realm
digital photography, although the point-and-shoot automatic camera can be
designed to provide little room for contributions by a competing brand.
Polaroid’s cameras and film allowed for virtually no room for contributions by
competitors. However, the earlier Polaroid technologies, from the 1940s to the
1970s, were awkward and messy, the print accompanied by extra paper some of
which was coated by a corrosive gel. It
was felt that if their tightly-coupled system were to thrive it had to produce
no garbage and be smoothly operating, elegant, and simple for the user.[2]
Edwin Land’s Polaroid SX-70 “instant” camera system
(1972-1986) produced prints (about 3+ inches square) that developed outside the
camera in about five minutes. Viewfinding and manual focus were through the
lens (a “single lens reflex” or SLR), exposure was automatic, and eventually
focus was automatic, too. The quality of the Polaroid dye-diffusion process of
development was limited by the diffusion process (and so the horizontal spread induced
by that process). Since the film/print were combined, and it was integral to
the system, the lens could be designed to be of just-sufficient quality, much
less than even modern point-and-shoots, so that the prints looked at least
good-enough (good contrast, but fine detail could not be discerned—6-8
line-pairs/mm, not much more than the unaided eye, and lens aberrations matched
the film’s insensitivity to them). One kind of picture that is encouraged and
facilitated by the lens’s design are detailed close-ups of everyday objects and
phenomena, just what was until recently was most difficult for almost all
amateur and professional cameras. In part this is because the SX-70 system is in fact of low
definition, so that its lens might well be adequate for such close-up images.
Similarly, digital point-and-shoot cameras have optics that are usually of
medium quality at best—and so the definition of close-ups could also be modest.)
The image developed in front of the user, in the light, as opposed to conventional
cameras where the image develops in the darkroom in the developer tray.
i
ii
FIGURE:
The SX-70 camera had a two-sided
movable mirror on a hinge, as well as a fixed mirror behind the two-sided
mirror. (i) When the two-sided mirror
is flipped up, the image is reflected off one side of the mirror onto the film
unit. (ii) When it is flipped down,
the image is reflected off the fixed mirror, D, in roughly the same
place, onto the Fresnel lens-mirror on the back of the two-sided mirror, from
there back onto D, and then through a small aperture in the bellows and
then through a curved mirror and a lens to the eye. When the mirror was flipped
down, it prevented light from reaching the film unit.
After exposure, a motor pushes the
film out of the cassette, through rotating rollers that spread the developing
fluid, and then, curving the film unit a bit, out into the open. The fluid also
contains an opacifier (to prevent the developing picture from becoming fogged
by the ambient light), one that will become transparent when the processing was
done.
Bureaucracy
vs. Tight-Coupling
In the classic accounts of bureaucracy, the various
bureaus have distinct roles, they take in “stuff” from other bureaus, process
that stuff according to the exact nature of each bit of stuff and perhaps with
some random or environmental influence, and send the processed stuff to other
bureaus, the path at each point depending on the state of the stuff. There is a well-defined division of labor.
(We’ll get to Adam Smith presently.) Since in fact the workers in a bureaucracy
are often longstanding, and they may well have family ties (from before or
after they joined the organization), idiosyncratic stuff that might be mangled
by the bureaucracy is given a legitimate and expeditious path by those workers,
informally cutting across the lines, violating the classic account but not the
norms of their organization. Still, idiosyncratic path-breaking has in general
been views as both ingenious and delegitimating.
We
might say that getting inside one if the bureaus is a matter of “intimacy,”
while the classic bureaucracy is formal and proper.
In
computer science, tightly-coupled
systems usually have intimate connections between the software and hardware,
and particular internal features of each are taken advantage of by the other.
Rather than their being black boxes in a well-defined system, each of whose
characteristics are specified in terms of inputs and outputs, and whose
connections with each other are well specified and rather limited (so that they
are loosely coupled) the various
parts depend on their being able to invade other black boxes (“intimacy”) and
take advantage of sweet peculiarities.
In contrast, Adam
Smith’s pin factory, described in the first chapter of the Wealth of Nations (1776), allowed for mass production at low cost,
the pin having various “parts,” each part associated with a worker. What was
once produced through artisanal work, the pin might then have been seen as the
product of a “tightly-coupled” technology since the various artisanal steps,
likely done by one artisan, were so closely associated with each other,
presumably each step compensating for minor defects in the previous step.
So, it is perhaps a
commonplace to distinguish technologies that are tightly coupled from those
that allow for interchangeable parts. Apple’s Mac computers had, at first,
distinctive processing chips, a distinctive operating system, and other
features, all of which appeared to work together in to create a distinctive and
unique machine. And Mac computers came to be seen as especially attractive to
those who worked in the graphic arts, in part because Apple encouraged suitable
software. On the other hand, the PC (whoever manufactured it) allowed for many
realizations in terms of processors, operating systems, and attached external
devices, allowing for many sorts of applications. The tightly-coupled-technology
product could demand greater loyalty and pricepoint, especially with
patent protection, since there was no direct competition for a configuration,
while price competition and quality competition soon were prevalent for PCs.
On the other hand, a
tightly-coupled technology may be
designed to allow for greater reliability and fewer unanticipated breakdowns.
Yet, as modern automobiles have become rather more tightly coupled with the
advent of intrinsic computation and electronics as part of their design,
glitches have developed in new models since unanticipated coordination problems
showed themselves. And if there is a breakdown of some aspect of the
tightly-coupled technology, there may be no off-the-shelf replacement and hence
there is great vulnerability if there are failures.
The marketing problem is
one of legitimation: convert limitations and idiosyncratic advantages in
tightly-coupled technologies into virtues and unique selling propositions, so
to speak, or, intimacy makes for love. Tight-coupling
allows for, or perhaps demands, efficient
and flexible optimization, compensating
features and capabilities, problems
or limitations to be taken as virtues, and design compromises to be taken as advantages. Put differently, what
was good-enough given these limitations and constraints had to become seen as a
sign of excellence. This artisanally manufactured pin is sharper and more
beautiful than the mass produced one, it might be said. Moreover, the
experience of the user, given the idiosyncratic nature of the design, may be
given a portmanteau of intimacy, or friendliness, or perhaps of luxury and the
“high end.” We might say, intimacy is better than alienation and economizing.
These notions are
generic; they become informative when we see how they are actualized in a
particular technology and a design.
There was a time when
Leica cameras were more artisanally manufactured, with hand adjustment of the
fit of the parts. I suspect that the aura and appeal that surrounded those
Leica cameras or those Mac computers may be understood in these terms of
tight-coupling.
It should be noted
that designers of software in general want to have loosely-coupled
technologies, and hence the talk of object-oriented programming and
modularization, in part to isolate problems, in part to make the software
readable. Yet some tasks are so demanding of a computer’s power, that it is necessary
to get down in the ditches, so to speak, and employ tricks and moves taking
advantage of the computation mechanism itself, if those tasks are to be
possible at all in finite times. Of course, the tricks and schemes of one
generation may become incorporated into standard loosely-coupled practice in
the next generation.[3]
——————————————————-
To recapitulate, the Polaroid SX-70 camera-film system employed a
single-lens-reflex camera to produce three-inch-square “instant” pictures that
developed outside the camera in about five minutes with no discarded paper (an
“integral” film).[4]
One could work in the light.[5]
And, like a daguerreotype, there was a unique image (rather than a negative
that might be used to produce multiple prints). (In the case of SX-70, the negative was not useable or
accessible; there was no negative at all for the daguerreotype.) It would seem
that the camera was designed to encourage formal composition, rather than
detailed representations.
It is perhaps worth indicating the
level of deliberate design of that system and its connection with
picture-making. Besides close-ups, the motorized automatic system allowed for
rapid sequences of prints (so rapidly using up lots of expensive film!), and
portraits. Portraits, which more or less fill the image, become easy—although
it requires a readily-attached supplementary telephoto lens if their
perspective is to be pleasing. The Charles and Ray Eames film made to introduce
the camera, features just these sorts of pictures—close-ups, details, patterns,
and sequences—and the rapid checking of the pictures in their “robust”
easily-handled little units. (When I use terms such as robust, in quotation marks, that is the term of art employed by
Polaroid.) The familiar shall be made available and strange. And the artist
David Hockney's joiners or mosaics make use of the close-up, sequence, and
rapid checking of the instant image. Lucas Samarras, another artist,
manipulated the developing emulsion to create phantasmagorias.
The Polaroid SX-70 system was not the only way for amateurs to make these kinds
of photographs—rather, it makes them easily and straightforwardly compared to
conventional systems or to previous instant systems. By hiding most of the
technology, and allowing for immediate retakes based on the previous image, Land
argued that the amateur can participate in what he designated as the romantic
tradition of the photographer--as artist (presumably elevated from the role of
snapshooter).[6]
(I believe that Land was committed to or at least enchanted by these notions of
creativity and humanity; they were not just
salesmanship or just an attempt to
sell more film.) If the photographer can observe her work immediately, she can
learn to make better photographs. The secret is to “work in the light” (if
possible, next to the subject), as Richard Benson has argued for photo-offset
lithographic printing.[7]
By design, the technology
facilitated a kind or style of photographing by making technical choices
invisible to the user.
The
SX-70 Design
The design of the SX-70 is an example of a tightly-coupled
technology, where advantages and limits of one aspect are complemented by those
of other aspects. (I shall use the present tense to describe the design, rather
than the historical past, since my sources are contemporary with the SX-70’s era. I have not discussed all
the problems and weaknesses of the SX-70,
except if they were then converted into virtues and advantages. See note ? for a more objective account,
comments from internet viewers being especially interesting.)
1. Tight-Coupling. The SX-70
is a system:[8]
the camera, the style of photography, the nature of the user, the film's
resolution and palette—all are meant to work together. So, for example, the way
the camera is held, the transparency or clarity of the viewfinding system, and
the kinds of pictures that are encouraged by the lens's capacities are meant to
enable each other.
The user is assumed to be an
amateur with little expertise. All the user need learn is how to focus (which
is not so easy). The camera is meant to “teach” the user how to make better
photographs. Land referred to the system as “absolute one-step photography,”
since there was no timing, no separation of the picture from the negative, no
exposure metering—burdens in earlier Polaroid systems. (Note how past problems
justify the uniqueness of the novel technology, as argument that might well pay
little attention to earlier competitive achievements that had already solved
the problem.) As Walker Evans said late in his career about using the SX-70 system, “It reduces everything to
your brains and taste.”[9]
It seems that Polaroid had
carefully studied what makes a photograph look good to the average user (as had
Kodak and Fuji), its image structure and color, and which lens aberrations are
tolerated and which need to be reduced. Since Polaroid’s system includes the
film and camera and the print, it can ask that question for the system and make
improvements in the lens or the camera or the film as need be to achieve a sufficiently
high-quality print. So, for example, the sharpness of an image, the acutance of
the edges of objects, depends on lower levels of resolution (a few line-pairs/millimeter)
than do details (30 line-pairs/millimeter). A lens with good gross resolution
may well appear sharper than one that has its strengths in fine resolution.
Moreover, it makes little sense to design a lens for very high resolution if
the film itself cannot record details at that level. Hence, Polaroid might well
optimize the system for subjective perceived sharpness rather than for high
resolution as measured objectively.
2. Efficient
and Flexible Optimization. So, as a tightly-coupled system, constraints can
be solved systemically, rather than through just one part or another: The film is
exposed through the front surface of the picture unit and viewed through that
same surface. Consquently, there must be a mirror in the image path within the
camera to ensure that the image is properly left-right oriented, for
viewfinding and for the print itself.[10]
Again, the lens need be not much finer in resolution than is the film unit that
is the hand-held print. That the film-print unit is a given, means that the
system's design can optimize more efficiently, not needing to consider a
variety of films. So, for example, in the design of the telephoto attachment,
the lens's designer, James G. Baker, says that one achieves
…
a compact afocal lens which is characterized by optimizing other corrections at
the expense of a limited degree of pincushion distortion and some sacrifices in
longitudinal color correction, particular in the ultraviolet. Experiments have
shown that good quality color prints can be obtained, particularly with
Polaroid SX-70 Land film, so long as
the optical system is well corrected for astigmatism, coma, spherical
aberration, flatness of field and lateral color, reasonably well corrected for
distortion, and corrected for longitudinal color except for a fairly
considerable latitude in the violet.[11]
Some constraints are by-the-way loosened:
SX-70 apparently-dry images take
about two weeks to dry internally. That internal dampness is not apparent to
the viewer or the holder of the print, although one might notice the vents
built into the top of the film unit. By allowing for slow drying, one is
enabled to have a “self-washing” print-stabilizing system, which produces
(within the picture unit itself) water as its final product (just what needs to
evaporate over time). The picture unit stays flat, unlike earlier Polaroid
prints, because it is made with a polyester front and back (Mylar), that
polyester, unlike cellulose acetate, not being very permeable to water but
being especially good at dimensional stability, just what is needed for
flatness.[12]
Polaroid also discovered that “the
consumer would accept garbage,” in the sense that the print would still have
attached to it the pod that held the gooey developer as well as the trap that
held leftover developer—as long as the consumer did not have to deal with them.
The print might have strange borders but no one seemed to care. (Previous
Polaroid systems produced lots of garbage that had to be discarded, and Kodak's
initial integral instant system deliberately arranged for the pod and trap to
be retained in the camera cartridge.)
3. Compensating
Features and Capabilities. As a system there can be compensating features
in the different elements that make up for each other: The viewfinding elements
variously tilt, decenter, and introduce aberrations into the image, but the
elements then compensate for each other to give an upright, correct right-left,
almost life-sized aerial image with good eye relief (so the image is more
readily seen by spectacle-wearers). One is supposed to “live in the
viewfinder,” composing much as does the user of a view camera. An aspheric
corrector plate of 1/10" diameter, at the point where the light exits the
exposure chamber, is in effect a contact lens on the viewer's eye making up for
some of the distortions and aberrations.[13]
The ground glass needs to be rough enough for one to be sure one is focusing on
the image, yet not make the image too dark—and by being able to modulate both
the roughness of the focusing screen and the tilt of an incorporated Fresnel
lens, one can achieve both focusing and brightness goals.[14]
The picture unit bends behind a light baffle or shield on the way out of the
camera in order to prevent too early exposure to room light (before the
“opacifier” acts) and also prevents light-piping which would cause fogging of
the image—and that bending as well makes for a more even spread of the
developing reagent.[15]
To the picture taker, what is crucial is that the film unit emerges from the
camera from a thin slot, which also holds it in place so it does not fall to
the floor. What might have been accidental features, not necessarily fully
intended, are now presented as deliberate advantages.
4. Problems
as Virtues. Design criteria are sometimes derived from limitations of
previous embodiments. Given problems with previous Polaroid instant systems,
one now wanted photographs that would not curl up and would stay flat, and a
process that did not produce litter. The “symmetric support system” of the
picture unit (polyester on both front and back) and the fact that it was
integral solved both problems. That it took a long time for this “instant”
integral system to develop (vs. the fabled 60, or even 10, seconds for earlier
Polaroid processes), was made into a virtue—for one could watch as the image
appeared over a several-minute period.
In my reading of the record, again
and again Polaroid took its solutions of problems as unique inventions and
signs of “brilliance,” and what could not be solved became a virtue of the
experience.[16]
Tightly-coupled almost always means limited flexibility, and that may be then presented
as a virtue.
5.
Design Compromises as Advantages. Given
a conception of the user and the kinds of photographs that might be taken, many
design compromises could be made which would improve the picture-taking
experience. Since the camera was meant to be mass-marketed, a great deal of
effort could be put into the design, the design costs amortized over a larger
number of units. Fancy technology made cheap could then provide for superior
performance.
The viewfinder design, involving
aspheric and non-rotationally symmetric elements, thus became affordable. The
chemical opacifier that insured that the emerging picture unit would not be
fogged by the bright room light, also enabled the image to emerge from behind
such a chemical shield (the print itself having emerged from the camera through
a mechanical shield), and so provided a distinct sort of several-minute
experience for the viewer. A similar experience happens in the darkroom and the
developing solution in conventional photographic materials, but now we are
working in the light rather than working in almost darkness—again, a point
often made by Land and also made by Richard Benson (but in his case, about
photomechanical printing, which in part was Fox Talbot's impetus to develop
photography). If you work with printing-out-paper, you can also work in the
light, subdued and sunlight, and check on the progress of your print. In each
case, “you're continually being informed by what you do.”[17]
The lens was designed to be thin, so that the camera could fold nicely.[18]
But, again, it was also designed to have superior close up capacities (to about
10"). Yet it needed to have only a medium aperture (f/8 to f/12) and very
moderate resolution (6-7 line-pairs/millimeter)—given the speed of the film and
the film's limited resolution (and the fact that enlargements are likely to be
modest).
The ground glass eventually was
equipped with a built-in split image rangefinder, but its location is not at
the center of the image. Rather it is at the right-left center but 2/3 of the
way down from the top. It is said that the designers wanted to encourage the
users to use the ground glass focusing, to “stay” in the viewfinder. (The
through-the-lens viewfinder gives a life-sized image at 20" and a larger
than life-size image for closer distances.)
But in the patent they point out that by forcing people to move off the
center of the image the user might find new compositional choices that would be
preferable. Moreover, by so locating the rangefinder the image is likely to
capitalize on the best focus of the lens for the whole image rather than just
for the center.[19]
(I am aware that one might be skeptical
of claims made in interviews, in patent filings, and in legal venues. Still, I
believe that that such claims are made ubiquitously indicates how Polaroid
(Land) thought about the system.)
The camera's automatic exposure
system must be accurate since there is no chance to make corrections to a
poorly exposed negative in the actual printing itself. Each image is unique,
the process of development going to completion with little or no discretion on
the part of the photographer. Of course, the photographer might just take
another picture, then and there, having adjusted the exposure after seeing the
image “materialize.” But one wants to assure a high degree of success in
general, so that the photographer does not get discouraged and abandon the
camera. (It was said that garage sales, and now eBay, were created to get rid
of old Polaroid cameras.[20])
Hence, one has to have a very good sense of the capacities of the film and the
likely subjects and lighting conditions that ordinary users will encounter, and
make sure that the built-in program of automatic exposure takes these factors
into account. Modern point-and-shoot cameras (film or digital) have quite
complex programs, anticipating an even wider range of picture-taking
situations.[21]
An
Intimate “High-End Experience
As a consequence of these systemic
design choices, picture-making is said to be more “intimate” than for most
camera systems—the lens, the viewfinding system, and the size and shape of the
picture unit encourage such intimacy.[22]
(Of course, in making such a claim one
is defining what intimacy means in this context, clearly to the advantage of
your realization.) One is, in effect, creating unique hand-held miniatures.
And, again, as for any rapid process, it is easy to experiment, to make a picture,
examine it, make corrections, and shoot again; and, crucially, here one is
working in the light. (It is worth noting that modern digital point-and-shoot
cameras have many of the features of the Polaroid system, but of course with
the proviso that the print is still outside the system—although there are some
such cameras that do produce prints.) But nowadays it is not clear most users
demand paper prints, especially en they view images on the computer screen or
in an electronic frame.)
The look of the print is built
into the camera-film-photographer system. In each case, compromises are made,
which from the point of view of the envisioned user are perhaps advantages. Of
course, the photographer may not sense these advantages or these choices explicitly.
The system is just the way things are, how this camera and film work.
For example, the surface
structure of an ordinary print derived from a 35mm point-and-shoot film camera
would seem to be duller than that of the SX-70
print, although the ordinary print has much greater resolution. The
“translucence” of the SX-70 print is
in part due to the fact that it has no grain structure since it is a dye image
on a white pigment background.[23]
And a Polacolor peel-apart print, the earlier non-integral Polaroid instant
system, or a carbro print or a photomechanical print (say six-color offset
lithography) will have a textured relief due to the multiple layers used in
making it up, something not seen at all in the SX-70 or in an ordinary photographic print. The tone and palette of
each image is an achievement, and the design choices in the way the image is
built up lead to images that are in fact quite different in feel.
In a systemic design one sees
quite poignantly the consequences of that design. The technology has a look.
The kinds of pictures it accommodates are idiosyncratic, and so systemic design
choices have stylistic consequences. But, it would seem, there is room for
choice nonetheless, some of which might be deleterious. Land and Polaroid chose
to make a system that they took to be a “new” form of seeing and photography, a
system that was a “sweet” state-of-the-art design, one that was meant to set a
standard, create new markets, and appeal at first to “higher end” users. The
owner was given a detailed how-to-photograph manual, The World of SX-70, ostensibly an instruction manual, but actually
about how to get good photographs suited to the film and camera's capabilities,
and how to make more artistic pictures, as well. In particular, there is advice
about how to learn to focus, and how to work with the camera's built in
exposure automation. And the Eames film about the camera began with Alfred
Stieglitz's magazine Camera Work
(1903-1917) as a model, and went on to speak of “art,” a “step in learning,”
and “insight” when referring to taking pictures with the camera.
When Eastman Kodak developed its
integral instant film system (PR-10),
in response to Polaroid's, it aimed for more conventional snapshooters who now
would get their pictures instantly from comparatively inexpensive
technologically simple cameras (but with film priced roughly the same as
Polaroid's). Their goal was to gain some market share against a competitor and
to expand the market, not to create an entirely new market. (In Polaroid's patent
infringement suit against Kodak, in the damages phase of the trial, Polaroid
referred to Kodak's “trashing” the integral instant-film photography market.
Polaroid bragged about the permanence of their images; Kodak's were discovered
to fade much more readily in the sunshine.)[24]
Fuji’s Instax technology, like Kodak’s PR-10,
exposed the film through one side of the unit and the print was viewed through
the other, allowing for a rather more conventional camera design (again as in
Kodak), with no need for a mirror to reverse right and left. Now, the
film-print unit is itself a wonderfully complex tightly-coupled multi-layered
chemical technology (as was Polaroid’s and Kodak’s). But the tightly-coupled
technology of the SX-70 camera would
not be demanded, and the then current Polaroid cameras of the early early 1970s
could have been readily adapted through minimal redesign to the new integral
film. Ironically, the iconic SX-70
cameras and their justification (as I have described them here) might never
have been developed. Later, the snapshot models that used the integral film,
such as the One-Step must build in
the reversing mirror, although they use a conventional viewfinder, and so they
have an idiosyncratic shape.
Conclusion
Bureaucracies actually work well
when they allow for likely-legitimate violations of the classic model, namely
some tight-coupling. I have tried to describe in detail one tightly-coupled
technology, not only as an object, but as an object in use, so that the
material aspects have direct implications for the experience and capabilities.
Mac computers (hardware and software), as tightly-coupled systems and Steve
Jobs have been analogized to the Polaroid SX-70
(camera and film) and Edwin Land: objects, objects in use, and leadership that creates
a myth.[25]
Insofar as the historian of technology has access to the actual design process
(here again, think of d’Alembert and Diderot), and to the marketing strategy,
one may appreciate the peculiarities of a technology not only as a matter of
efficiency or cost, let us say. Rather, what we see is how individual or
corporate vision finds a way to make something that then may be described in
more engineering-economic terms. Of course, this too is a commonplace, but when
we see it in actual action, in detail, in leadership, in a transformation of
what we take as desirable, we appreciate history as it actually or essentially
happens (to quote von Ranke).
Notes
[1] . J. leR. d’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of
Diderot, tr. R.N. Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995,
originally 1751), pp. 122-127. D. Diderot, Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industy: Manufacturing and
the Technical Arts in Plates Selected from "L'Encyclopedie, Ou Dictionnaire:
New York: Dover, 1993)
[2]. The references given in note 4 and note
25 provide much of the history of Polaroid’s earlier efforts. Buse, 2016, is
deliberately not about the technology; Bonanos, 2012, is more technical; and,
Fierstein, 2015, is about the Kodak patent battle. McElheny, 1998, is perhaps
the best account.
[3]. K. G. Wilson, in discussing his
computation method of solving the Ising model, in which he uses a variety of
tricks and approximations since they then make the calculation practical, says
that the tricks of one generation become the theory and methods of the next.
[4].
See Land, Rogers, and
Walworth, “One-Step Photography”; also, E. H. Land, “Absolute One-Step
Photography,” Photographic Science and
Engineering 16 (1972): 247-252; The
Photographic Journal 114 (1974): 338-345.
Bonanos, C. 2012. Instant: The Story of Polaroid.
Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.
Buse, P. 2016. The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid
Changed Photography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fierstein, R. K. 2015. Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid
Patent War. Chicago: American Bar Association.
Here are some consulted references on the Polaroid
SX-70:
Bloom, S. M., M. Green, M.
Idelson, and M. S. Simon, “The Dye Developer in the Polaroid Color Photographic
Process,” in K. Venkataraman, ed., The
Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes, volume VIII.
New York: Academic Press, 1978,
pp. 331-384ff.
Campbell, F. W., “Dr. Edwin H.
Land,” in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows
of the Royal Society 40 (1994):
195-219.
Dubin, J. A., “The Demand for
Cameras by Consumers—A Model of Purchase, Type Choice, and Brand Choice,” in, Studies in Consumer Demand—Econometric Methods Applied to Market Data. Boston:
Kluwer, 1999, chapter 7, pp. 197-237.
Fleckenstein, L., “Image
Transfer Processes,” in T. H. James, The
Theory of the Photographic Process, edn. 4.
New York: Macmillan, 1977, pp.
366-372.
Freeman, M., Instant Film Photography. Salem, New Hampshire: Salem House, 1985.
Lambert, R., “A Technical
Description of Polaroid Spectra Film,” Journal
of Imaging Technology 15 (1989):
108-113.
Land, E. H., “A New One-Step
Photographic Process,” Journal of the
Optical Society of America 37 (1947):
61-77.
Land, E. H., “Absolute one-step
photography,” Photographic Science and
Engineering 16 (1972): 247-252.
Land, E. H., “Absolute One-Step
Photography,” The Photographic Journal
114 (1974): 338-345.
Land, E. H., “One-Step
Photography,” The Photographic Journal 90A (Jan 1950): 7-15.
Land, E. H., H. Rogers, and V.
Walworth, “One-Step Photography”, in, J. M. Sturge, ed., Neblette’s
Handbook of Photography and Reprography, edn. 7. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977, pp.
258–330.
Lapidus, G., “Behind the Lens
of the SX-70,” IEEE Spectrum (December
1973): 76-83.
Mahajan, V., S. Sharma, and R.
B. Buzzell, “Assessing the Impact of Competitive Entry on Market Expansion and
Incumbent Sales,” Journal of Marketing
57 (July 1993): 39-52.
Mazzone, A. D., Judgment in
“Polaroid Corporation v. Eastman Kodak Company, No. 76-1634-MA, United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts (12 Oct 1990). [Damages phase of trial]
McCune, Jr., W. J., and B.
Cassell, “Simplifying Camera Technology:
Polaroid’s Pioneering Efforts,” Journal
of Imaging Technology 17
(1991): 62-66.
McElheny, V., Insisting on the Impossible, The Life of
Edwin Land. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Perseus, 1998.
McNaught, N., “The SX-70 system of instant photography,” Optics and Laser Technology 11
(1979): 161-167.
Olshaker, M., The Instant Image . New York:
Stein and Day, 1978.
Perry, T. S., “The battle for
the SX-70,” IEEE Spectrum 26 (May 1989):
45-49. Suppliers for the
electronics.
Plummer, W. T., “Focus screen
optimization,” Applied Optics 14
(1975): 2762-2765.
Plummer, W. T., “Photographic
shutters: better pictures with a
reconsideration of shutter efficiency,” Applied
Optics 16 (1977): 1914-1917.
Plummer, W. T., “The SX-70 Camera: The Optics,” Optics and Photonics News (October 1994): 44-48.
Plummer, W. T., “Unusual optics
of the Polaroid SX-70 camera,” Applied Optics 21 (1982): 196-202.
Plummer, W. T., J. G. Baker,
and J. van Tassell, “Photographic optical systems with nonrotational aspheric
surfaces,” Applied Optics 38
(1999): 3572-3592.
Van de Sande, C. C., “Dye
Diffusion Systems in Color Photography,” Angewandte
Chemie International English Edition 22 (1983): 191-209.
Walworth, V, and S. Mervis,
“Instant Photography and Related Reprographic Process,” in J. Sturge, V.
Walworth, and A. Shepp, eds., Imaging
Processes and Materials, Neblette’s Eighth Edition . New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989, pp. 181-225.
Walworth,
V. K., “Color Photography, Instant,” in Kirk-Othmer
Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, edn. 3, vol. 6, pp. 646-682.
Wareham, R. R., “Dr. Land’s SX-70 Camera, A Brief,” Optics and Photonics News (October
1994): 46-47.
Wensberg, P. C., Land’s Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Zobel, D. J., Judgment in
“Polaroid Corporation v. Eastman Kodak Company, No. 76-1634-Z, United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts (11 Oct 1985). [Liability phase of trial]
Patents:
“Novel Photographic
Products and Processes,” USPat 3,415,644 (Land, Dec 10, 1968)
“Color Photographic Product
Formed by Diffusion Transfer,” USPat 3,578,540 (Land, May 11, 1971)
“Compact Four Element
Photographic Objective Lens,” USPat 3,619,036 (Baker, Nov 9, 1971)
“Reflex Camera,” USPat
3,672,281 (Land, June 27, 1972)
“Compact Folding Reflex
Camera,” USPat 3,678,831 (Baker, July 25, 1972)
“Reflective Imaging
Apparatus,” USPat 3,690,240 (Gold, Sept 12, 1972)
“Compact Four Element Objective Lens,” USPat 3,695,750
(Baker, Oct 3, 1972)
“Self-Developing Camera
System,” USPat: 3,810,211 (Wareham, Paglia, May 7, 1974)
“Reflex Camera Viewfinder with
Image Correcting Means,” USPat 3,860,940 (Baker, Jan 14, 1975)
“Focusing Screen,” USPat
3,971,051 (Baker, Johnson, Jy 20, 1976)
“Adapter for Coupling a Camera
To An Optical Instrument,” USPat: 4,279,487 (Baker, Fitch, Vance, Jy 21, 1981)
“Compact Four Element Afocal
Lens [telephoto adaptor for SX-70],”
USPat 4,171,872 (Baker, Oct 23, 1979)
[5].
Mark Klett is said to have
analogized the Polaroid positive-negative film, P/N Type 55, to wet plates, the
washing of the instant negative being the analogous step. W. Fox, Viewfinder: Mark Klett, photography, and
reinvention of landscape (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
2001), p. .
[7]. Richard Benson, see note 14.
[9].
Quoted in
Keller, Walker Evans (Malibu: Getty
Museum, 1996). See also Jerry Thompson, The
Last Years of Walker Evans (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997). Also, from
Jerry L. Thompson and John T. Hill, eds., Walker
Evans at Work (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), p. 235: “I'm very excited
about that little gadget which I thought was just a toy at first. . . . using
it to extend my vision, and let that open up newstylistic paths that I haven't
been down yet. . . .
“A practiced photographer has an
entirely new extension in that camera. You photograph things that you wouldn't
think of photographing before. I don't even yet know why, but I find that I'm
quite rejuvenated by it. With that little camera your work is done the instant you
push that button. But you must think what goes into that. You have to have a
lot of experience and training and discipline behind you. . . . It's the first
time, I think, that you can put a machine in an artist's hands and have him
then rely entirely on his vision and his taste and his mind.”
[12].
E. Land,
“Color Photographic Product Formed by Diffusion Transfer,”; McElheny, Insisting on the Impossible, p. 357, on
the internally-wet final product. Land spoke of the picture unit as being
“hard, dry, shiny, and flat”—all lacking in his previous peel-apart films.
[13].
Plummer,
“Unusual optics of the Polaroid SX-70
camera”; J. G. Baker, “Reflex Camera Viewfinder With Image Correcting Means.”
[16].
Land
regularly referred to Polaroid's “brilliance” in this regard. Competitors might
claim that much of it was obvious or prior art.
[17].
This is exactly what
Richard Benson does in his photomechanical printing. In a book of Irving Penn's
photographs (Passage (New York:
Knopf, 1991)) he used black (shadow detail), black cut with transparent white
(longer half-tone scale “to add weight to the middle tones down through the
shadows”), a variety of grays depending on the image (color and highlights),
and a “bump black” added to give weight to the shadows, and then spot varnish
to hold the various layers together. See S. Taylor, “Tackling Irving Penn in
Print,” Publishers Weekly 238 (September 13, 1991): 50ff.
See also the wonderful essay by
Benson on printing Lee Friedlander’s photographs, in P. Galassi, Lee Friedlander (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2005).
Both Edwin Land (about Polaroid
instant film processes) and Richard Benson (about photo-offset lithographic
processes) emphasize the ease of experimentation, comparing the image with the
subject (albeit different sorts of subjects); the pleasure of working in the
light (rather than the darkroom) with a dry and clear print; and, the apparent
accumulation of effort in their respective processes (and, for mechanical
printing, tone is an accumulation of impressions). Benson argues that
photographs were meant to be printed mechanically, as an adjunct to gravure or
letterpress or lithography. Note that Photoshop
with an inkjet printer offers many of these facilities. Richard Benson, “An
Artist's Perspective on the Photomechanical Alternative to Silver.” On Land,
see V. McElheny, Insisting on the
Impossible, p. 164.
By the way, there is something quite
different in philosophy here than Ansel Adams' “previsualization”—although
surely Adams experimented, and Benson previsualizes.
J. P. Caponigro, “Interview with
Richard Benson,” View Camera
(January/February 1997): 24-31. Some of the quotations are out of the original
order.
[18].
J. G.
Baker, “Compact Four Element Photographic Objective Lens” [SX-70 lens].” See also, US Pat 3,695,750 (Oct. 3, 1972).
[19].
J. G.
Baker and B. K. Johnson, “Focusing Screen.” Unfortunately, people tended to
center their image on the split-image rangefinder located in the lower third of
the image, and so the top third of their pictures was blank or filled with
irrelevant material. In portraits, the bottom half of bodies was chopped off.
[22]. M. Olshaker, The Instant Image, pp. 234-237; M.
Freeman, Instant Film Photography
(Salem, NH: Salem House, 1985).
[23].
Land,
“Absolute One-Step Photography,” p. 247. Still there is fluctuation in areas of
uniform tone and color.
[24].
The
advantages of the dye-release system employed by Kodak were a consequence of
there being no active diffusing dye molecules, so the image was not redoxed on
way to the mordant or by aerial oxidation in the mordant (as would be the case
in the dye-developer process employed by Polaroid, in which the diffusing dyes
are still attached to developer molecules). Polaroid calls the dye-release
process that Kodak adopted, “Excedrin with L(and)-Coat” (to neutralize the
active molecules and stabilize the image in the mordant; the process it adopted
was called “Aspirin.” (See, on various systems, C. C. Van de Sande, “Dye
Diffusion Systems in Color Photography.”
[25]. See, for example, Harry McCracken at technologizer.com/2011/06/08/polaroid
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