Blog Post #7

On October 14, 1884 a patent was made that would eventually effect my life and the lives of many others. This was the day that George Eastman would patent paper photographic film; Eastman founded Eastman Kodak Company. Photography is one of my passions, and this patent was one of the steps in bringing picture taking to the greater public. Before digital cameras, that require no film, people had to use standard cameras that worked on this principle- a chemical reaction on the film. Film consists of many different chemical layers so that it can properly capture the colors of an image. It’s made up of chemicals such as cellulose acetate and silver nitrate; silver compounds are light sensitive (change color when exposed to light).  In 1727 a German scientist named Johan Heinrich Schulze was mixing a batch of silver nitrate when he saw when it was exposed to light it turned purple. Now our film has a top layer of scratch resistant chemical, then a layer of silver compounds sensitive to blue, green and red light. On your camera when you push down the button and hear a “click!” you are actually hearing the sound of a shutter at the front of the camera opening and closing very quickly. This exposes the film for a split second and allows your image to get burned on the film with different chemicals to which it is sensitive. As you can imagine, as the demand for photography went up, so did the demand for film. Eastman’s patent was the first step to more film and more cameras. Our cameras have evolved into completely different technology that no longer needs film and can even fit into your cell phone. But if it hadn’t been for Eastman none of that would be possible.