A photographic quarterly camera work is published by Alfred Stiglitz shortly after the turn of the century. The photographs drawings and articles by Stiglitz and his friends signaled photography's coming of age in America. Photography is an art, a step in learning, and an insight into the life and the things that surround us. Stiglitz described his own work as the exploration of the familiar. He said, I have found my subjects within 60 yards of my door. He favored any means that might free the photographer's whole energies so that they could be channeled in the direction of the decision the picture itself. Since 1947, Edwin Landon Polaroid have pursued a central concept, one single thread, the removal of the barriers between the photographer and his subject. And now, a compact, folding, electronically controlled motor driven single lens reflex camera capable of focusing from infinity down to 10 inches has been developed to exploit integral self-processing film units, which one exposed are automatically ejected from the camera with no parts to peel or discard and whose final images emerge without timing in daylight, where the viewer can see the materialized within the same transparent protective plastic cover through which the film was originally exposed. Hold your left hand out, place the camera across the palm, grasp the rear of the viewfinder cap, pull the camera into its erect position. To load, press and the door opens. Take the 10-picture film pack and push it all the way in. Close the door and automatically the cover sheet will be ejected from the camera. Now rest the camera against your chin. Bring your eye to the viewing lens. Place your thumb on the back of the lens board and your finger on the focusing wheel, rolling left or right to bring the scene into sharp focus from infinity down to 10 inches. When the correct moment comes, press the red electric shutter button holding the camera steady until the film is out. In a situation where the light is faint, the electronic circuits will control exposures up to 14 seconds. Then the film is ejected. The 10 bulb flash unit, 5 on each face, is installed by inserting the prong of the unit, firmly into the opening above the lens. Select, focus, shoot. During the 1.5 seconds after the shutter button has been pushed and even during viewing, another story is going on inside the camera. This optical path from subject to eye is unique to this single lens reflex system. The four elements are articulated to fold into a compact unit that folds flat. The four element lens collects the light, which bounces off of a permanent mirror to a fine franelle surface. It bundles the light and reflects it back again to the same mirror. The light leaves the interior of the camera through two astigmatism correcting slits, bouncing off of an esophereic plastic mirror, which focuses the image in space. Is this image that is seen through the eyepiece, which is itself esophereic? When the picture is taken, the franelle moves, elevating the taking mirror so that the image that had fallen onto the retina of the photographer's eye, is reflected onto the film. The camera gets a fresh power source within each fresh film pack. A four-cell six-volt battery made like ribbon and cut to size. Foreign signals are transmitted throughout the camera. Each part of the system speaks to the other parts, getting their precise cues from a configuration of circuits that employs more than 200 transistors and as many resistors. These ultra-miniatorized integrated circuits take control of events once the button has been pushed. The first signal energizes solenoid number one and closes the shutter on the lens and photo cell. The blades are open when relaxed and in closing, activate the circuit that moves a small 12,000 RPM motor just seven revolutions, enough to both turn the mirror release cam and open a pair of contacts. Stopping the motor just as springs take over to release the mirror franelle assembly and send it into taking position. The solenoid power is off and as the lens shutter starts to open, so does the shutter in front of the photo cell. The ambient light passes through the photo cell lens, past the shutter blades and strikes the photo cell mounted on the main circuit board. The blades continue to open until light reaching the cell builds up enough voltage to trigger the shutter solenoid. The blades rush to the closed position and the motor is signaled to start the processing cycle. The gear train moves the film pick forward and the opacifier and reagents are spread between the photo sensitive layers and the clear plastic of the film unit. In the meantime, the mirror is lowered and latched. In lowering, it advances the film counter. All power is down, relaxing the shutter to its open position. The exposed film out of the camera is now protected by the Turkwoy's opacifier which also carries the processing ingredients. The film is about 100th of an inch thick. Two thirds of this is the transparent film cover and the black backing. The rest is the chemistry. All of this from the cover are three color sensitive layers, each with its complementary layer of dye developer. The untrapped dye developer will migrate to the positive to form the positive image. The process takes several minutes and the picture will continue to mature for some time. The white titanium dioxide forms a luminous background for the metalized dyes. You can look at technology as a living tree in the trunk bearing branches, the branches leafing out. What you can see is a net, each not tying up threads from many sides. But the human reality is more intricate than either one. We have been looking at one invention which began pretty purely out of the conception of a need. To hope, to change the person who takes pictures from a harried off-stage observer into someone who is a natural part of the event. No single thread will this invention, not lens, not moving mirror, not film chemistry, not clever circuits. They are coordinate. Parts of a single strategy working together to protect and fulfill the original hope. This invention is finally a system. Call it a system of novelties. And even that is not enough. The camera enters the real world only once of its precisely manufactured in quantity. That process, too, reflects a civilized concern. It has its visual beauty. It rewards skill and care with immediate feedback. In the end, it links the inventors, the engineers, the workers, the distributors into one chain of craftsmanship. The user is the final link. The device helps meet the universal need to do things well. It offers as a matter of course a tool for supplying a rich texture to memory. More than that, thoughtful use can help reveal meaning in the flood of images which makes up so much of human life. We hope the user will fully complete the chain, gaining as much fun, as much sense of self, and as clear participation in the stream of human creativity as did Edwin Land and the team who first made Essex Seventy.