SNUFF (h.s.)

Chapter 37

The Developer

Here follows a compact presentation of film chemical creation.

What we need to know in advance is that a certain type of yellow back paper & beveled plastic margins are protecting the film by pushing it against the spool at the dark insides of the camera avoiding accidental exposure. And so are revealed the film components: we have the gelatin overcoating which is animal skin provided by mother nature's creatures, the picture emulsion that means almost 100% silver, the film base made of cotton linters or wood fibres) and our gelatin backing (again – animal skin). The film base is cellulose esters. Oh well, that means the cotton is grinded into a container of solvent to become a clear thick liquid. Then is filtered and mixed and cooled and around a wheel ti become as a smooth layer as a moth's wings to dry and be rolled. Through a series of drying cylinders and then rolled. No dust. Beware.

Here comes gelatin. It protects & serves as a part of the light sensitive silver emulsion. The sheets of gelatin are trimmed. Potassium bromide is mixed with a stirrer in a certain amount of rotations. The silver blocks are melted & react with nitric acid to form silver nitrate. When cooled, we have silver nitrate crystals. The following process is done in complete darkness – the crystals are dissolved in distilled water. The gelatin is added in some ingredients stirred and heated in a container where potassium bromide is added. Then, the silver nitrate is added. And silver bromide is created. Those silver bromide particles are sensitive to light. Other chemicals are added.

Now we have film base pre-coated with an antihalation layer and the emulsion is run into the coating machine made by stainless steel. When the film base and the liquid emulsion merge, photographic film is born.

You dig? Photographic film is born!

Now it dries and then put in a cylinder. The film is checked to be cut in into narrow stripes. A machine prepares the yellow backing protecting paper. The backing paper, the film, the spool – those are the three parts of film – are assembled in an automatic spooling machine. Film and paper are cut and glued together. Then, the final product is rolled on the spool. Then packaged.

And so, Harry's hand opens the box to take the film spool and load it into the camera. He then sticks his round eye on the circling hole to film Nora. Nora transforms into myriads of silver crystals. The closer Harry's eye approaches, the more abstract and numinous appears she to be – and yet, that appearance of hers is and when he is distanced she'll become recognizable. Don't be fooled, Harry, in there Nora does not hide but particles of her form.

One second. One image.

One second. Two images.

One second. Three images.

One second. Four images.

One second. Five images.

One second. Six images.

One second. Seven images.

One second. Eight images.

One second. Nine images.

One second. Ten images.

One second. Eleven images.

One second. Twelve images.

One second. Thirteen images.

One second. Fourteen images.

One second. Fifteen images.

One second. Eighteen images.

One second. Nineteen images.

One second. Twenty images.