In 1947, Edwin Land introduced a great innovation to the world –
instant cameras. This camera with a film that developed itself in a matter of
minutes was a huge success. This text will determine the process inside instant
films, which may seem like magic but is actually a chemical chain reaction.
Instant camera film has three layers that are sensitive to
different colors of light. Underneath
each color layer, there is a developer
layer containing dye couplers.
All of these layers sit on top of a black base layer, and underneath the image layer, the timing layer and the acid layer. This arrangement is the
chemical chain reaction waiting to be set in motion. The reagent, which is a
mix of opacifiers (light-blockers), alkali (acid neutralizers) and white
pigment, starts the reaction. It is placed above the light-sensitive layers and
below the image layer. The reagent material is collected in a blob at the
border of the plastic film sheet. After a picture is taken, the film sheet
passes out of the camera, through a pair of rollers. These rollers spread the
reagent material out into the middle of the film sheet. When it is spread
between the image layer and the light-sensitive layers, a reaction with other
chemical layers in the film takes place. The opacifier material stops light
from filtering the layers below, so the film is not exposed before it is
developed. The reagent material moves downward through all layers which causes
the change of the exposed particles in each layer into metallic silver. Then,
the chemical dissolve the developer dye and it begins to diffuse up toward the
image layer. The metallic silver areas at each layer grab the dyes so only the
dyes from the unexposed layers can move up to the image layer. At the same time
other reagent chemicals are working through the film layers above. What makes
the image visible is the acid layer in the film reacting with the alkali and
opacifiers in the reagent. The timing layer slows the reagent down on its path
to the acid layer and gives the film time to develop before it is exposed to
light. Through this final chemical reaction one can see the image slowly coming
together although it is already fully developed underneath. However, the
opacifiers clearing up creates the illusion that it is forming right before
one’s eyes.
San Francisco – a small city that was famed as an artistic,
bohemian place with a history of flowering counter-cultures that spilled over
and changed America and the world. From the beats in North Beach to the hippies
in the hilly region of Haight-Ashbury to the gay rights movement in the Castro neighborhood.
This is what San Francisco is famous for – or better “was”? Some literary
legends who live there complain of a “soulless group of people”, a “new breed”
of men and women too busy with iPhones to “be here” in the moment. Shiny new
Mercedes-Benzs on the strees and several major art galleries have to close
because they cannot afford the new rent as bigger computing startups offered to
triple the rent. Is the Silicon Valley taking over the city?
San Francisco has definitely become the hype- and capital
fuelled epicenter of America’s technology industry, which has centred on the
string of suburban cities known as Silicon Valley. The impact on SF is
significant. Rents and house prices began to soar. Eviction rates soon followed
as property speculators sought to cash in by flipping rent-controlled apartment
buildings into flats to sell. Residents have found themselves unable to afford
to live in their city anymore. They are not only worried about being forced out
of the city they love, but also that their city is being changed for the worse.
Critics say that San Francisco’s communities of alternative culture, ethnic or
otherwise – the soil of its creative legendary social movements – are being
turned into playgrounds for rich people. If San Francisco’s soul is its social
and economic diversity and status as a refuge for those outside the mainstream,
the it is being lost. 
The problem San Francisco is now facing is called
“gentrification”. Gentrification is a shift in an urban community toward
wealthier residents and increasing property values. It is the result of
investment in a community by, in this case, the technology industry.
Gentrification leads to population migration, which involves poorer residents
being displaced by wealthier newcomers. Poorer pre-gentrification residents who
are unable to pay increased rents or property taxes may be driven out.
