The ritual of photography1

D. TOMAS

In 1908 Arnold Van Gennep published his now classic The Rites of
Passage. The book proposed a unifying theory for a certain class of
ceremonial rituals. These rituals that accompany a person's or group's
'life crises' or social transitions were termed by Van Gennep 'rites of
passage'. Some examples of such rites are birth, puberty, marriage, and
death, and more generally the movement from one social category to
another.
According to the theory, these rites are characterized by three succes-
sive and distinct moments in 'ritual time'. These moments provide a
symbolic bridge that permits the transformation or transposition of the
subject from one social category to another and they simultaneously
buffer the existing social fabric from the consequences of these crises. The
rites function to recognize these abnormal conditions and thus to
integrate the abnormal into a normally recognized sequence of social
activities. Based on a diagram by Edmund Leach (1976: 78), these rites
can be presented as in Figure 1.
The first transition is the rite of separation. It is constituted by the
symbolic behavior signifying the transition from the secular and profane
world of the social group to an abnormal and therefore sacred condition
opposite from, and contradictory to, the common set of cultural condi-
tions providing for social cohesion. This second transition or period of
transformation, the bridge between the subject or group's previous and
subsequent status, is the period of ritual metamorphosis. The conditions
of this stage are opposite from and therefore sacred, dangerous, and
unclean when compared with normal social conditions. Not only is it
metaphysically abnormal, but also the territory or location on which the
transformation takes place is sacred and outside of society. Victor Turner
(1972) has termed this stage 'betwixt and between', neither one nor the
other, a state of nonbeing, death, or nothingness. In this marginal state
the subject or subjects are considered to possess little of their former or
later attributes. When the desired symbolic transformation has taken

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Abnormal condition. Initiate without status,

outside society, outside time.

(Rite of Margin: marginal state or liminal period)

Initial Final
'normal' condition 'normal' condition

Initiate in Initiate in
Status A, TIME BASE: REALTIME Status B,
Time phase Tj Time phase T2

Rite of Rite of
Separation Aggregation
(Preliminal (Postliminal
period) period)

Figure 1.

place, a method is needed to reinstate the individual or group into society,

a method of renormalization and decontamination. It must not be
forgotten that the marginal state is considered sacred and unclean. The
rite of aggregation functions as a 'decontamination chamber', metaphori-
cally speaking, and the subject or subjects now enter their new status in
society. The rites of passage can be regarded as marking an ontological
shift. It is this model of a process of transition that I will apply to
photographic activity.
The photographic process can fruitfully be considered as a particular
cultural ceremony. Within this context it is possible to construct an
analogue symbolic stucture based on the rites of passage and to indicate
the type of transition accomplished as well as its social function.
Edmund Leach (1972: 334) has advanced a notion of ritual he derives
from information theory and defines as an information-bearing procedure
of a redundant and interference loaded type. It might function within a
culturally defined communication code or it can be potent in terms of
'cultural conventions' or Occult' powers categorized as magical. It is
contrary to rational/technical behavior. In terms of the photographic
process, the above definition is inadequate in two respects. The first is that
the process specifically belongs to that range of behavior known as
rational/technical, comprising as it does optic, material, and photochemi-
cal technology. The second is that functionally it is not part of the range
of human experience normally associated with 'magical' behavior.
These problems can be cleared to a certain extent by defining, as does

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 The ritual of photography 3

Van Gennep (1975: 13-14), the religious-magical domain as comprising

religion (a metaphysical system) and the technique of magic. If we replace
the religious system with another metaphysical system, that of science, we
are in a position to adapt the tools of magic to the service of science. It
now remains to see whether they are found in this latter realm of
experience. The technique of magic has been subdivided by Van Gennep
(1975: 4-9) into three binary sets. The first group comprises sympathetic
and contagious magic, the influence of like on like or imitative magic and
the view that actions can be transmitted over a distance or by way of
physical contact. The second group consists of direct and indirect
influences. This set distinguishes between actions carried out without an
intermediary agent and actions carried out with an intermediary agent.
The final group comprises positive and negative volitions or taboos. These
acts are translations of will, instructions, or commands. Any combination
of the elements of the three sets comprising the technique of magic can
define a particular rite.
In the case of photography, it is the scientific-'magical' or scientific-
technical framework that provides the infrastructure for the passage from
one social status to another. It defines ritual context and ritual process
while simultaneously defining spatial boundaries and the temporal se-
quence of rites. As a technique, it is based on notions of contagion and
indirectness and comprises both positive and negative volitions.
Again, within the context of the photographic ceremony, the term
sacred is more appropriate than Occult'. In this context sacred denotes
situations or objects that are out of bounds to normal experience because
they are in a state of opposition and therefore unclean and dangerous to
what is considered the profane or secular realm. As Van Gennep (1975:
12) has pointed out, 4Sacredness as an attribute is riot absolute; it is
brought into play by the nature of particular situations'. But whereas Van
Gennep limited the rites of passage to marginal and ill-defined social
states, Mary Douglas (1972: 200) has extended Van Gennep's insight to
include 'not only marginal social states, but all margins, the edges of all
boundaries which are used in ordering the social experience, are treated as
dangerous and polluting'. The reason for this boundary hypersensitivity
consists in its defining role: If the margins 4are pulled this way or that the
shape of fundamental experience is altered. Any structure of ideas is
vulnerable at its margins' (Douglas 1970: 121).
The photograph as the end product of the photographic ceremony
occupies a particular segment of social reality. It, in effect, represents the
culturalization or socialization of two particular segments of nature. It
achieves this by reconciling their contrariness within its structure. The two
natural elements are light and absence. Some explanation is needed at this

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4 D. Tomas

point. Light is ephemeral, but by revealing all it creates order. As the

agent for human perception it defines and thus orders the world. Its
nonexistence — darkness — denotes disorder. Absence, on the other
hand, defines the world in a complementary manner. It denotes disap-
pearance, the passing from view. Permanently or momentarily, absence
connotes movement. It is an empty category but always defined in terms
of its opposite — presence. The four terms light, darkness, absence, and
presence concern the faculty of seeing. They relate to visual knowledge.
The diagram below sets out the four-element relationship.

Light -Absence

Presence Darkness

What was at first a seemingly arbitrary relationship has, with the insertion
of the two related opposites, become a system of relationships. The
photographic ceremony, in effect, articulates the two sets of contradic-
tions

Light = Absence2
and
Presence = Darkness

in the following transformational permutation:

Inversion
Light = Presence-* (Presence = Darkness) -»
Inversion
Darkness = Absence -> (Absence = Light)

It transforms the relation light = presence by scientific-'magicaP means

into the contradictory and inverted term, absence = light, by a series of
permutations. It is this system of relations that constitute the building
blocks of photography.
John Berger (Berger and Mohr 1975: 13) has pointed out: 'All
photographs are a form of transport and an expression of absence.' The
social transition that is to be analyzed, then, is the transformation from a
subject's status of visual presence to the subject's visually present
nonpresence or absence within a common context of light, the agent of
vision. This transition implies the problem of the permanence of objects.

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 The ritual of photography 5

To borrow a relativistic image from C. E. M. load by way of illustration:

In the same way a man may be regarded as a series of momentary men. Apart
from these momentary men he has not real existence, so that in attributing to him
such continuous existence as we undoubtedly do in everyday life, we are
performing an act of mental construction which endows with apparent perman-
ence and solidity what is, in fact, a series of fleeting, momentary particulars. (load
1925: 47)

Although for Joad 'momentary particulars' refers to the relativistic and

microscopic properties of matter, it can apply to the macroscopic
properties of matter as well: The evolution of the sensorimotor schemes
involved in the construction of a notion of the permanence of objects in
children has been studied by Jean Piaget (1954: 3-96). It is my hypothesis
that photography functions to resolve this question in visual terms: The
momentary is made particular and permanent, having been processed by
a visual equation.
The paradox of the permanence of the photograph itself is resolved to a
degree by the fact that the fixed image is relatively stable when compared
to a world of flux. This comparative stability, along with its function,
points to its role as a secular symbol for eternity. The momentariness of
the photograph, as object, is neutralized by its dimensional stability (it is
symbolically dimensionless and timeless). The negative (itself reproduci-
ble) provides the means for the creation of a multitude of originals for
comparison with each other and/or with the first photographic print. This
potential for perpetual regeneration adds stability by repetition and
creates a latent omnipresence, adding to the photograph's power as a
symbol for eternity.
The creation of a photographic ceremonial offers a more satisfactory
resolution to the paradox of permanence, a problem formerly dealt with
by the illusionistic arts. Jack Burnham has stated:

A case has been made for the deterioration of realistic painting following the
invention of the daguerreotype in 1839. But it would seem that the decline of the
Renaissance conventions had already begun at least two centuries before in Dutch
painting. What the photograph did, as Delacroix attested, was to offer painters an
infallible imitation of reality which they could never hope to duplicate .... So that
the optical-chemical duplication of actual events simply encouraged a tendency
away from realism which had been at work in artist's minds for centuries. (1973:
45)

Burnham has failed to trace the camera obscura's relationship to painting

from the Renaissance onward, and consequently its role in causing the

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6 D. Tomas

decline of those conventions. He has also failed to explain adequately why

a culture should develop such a structure. He points out. 'In fact it seems
reasonable that only a culture impelled to imitate the results of a camera
would have bothered to develop this particular piece of technology' (1973:
45). If my hypothesis is correct it is not 'a culture impelled to imitate the
results of a camera' that would have bothered to invent it. The photo-
graphic ceremony, the cultural process that it represents, is the result of an
attempt to resolve a fundamental cognitive contradiction; that of the gap
between the mental construction of permanence and the visual disjunction
between momentary states. Mary Douglas (1970: 38) has pointed to the
cultural conditions of this type of resolution: There are several ways of
treating anomalies. Negatively, we can ignore, just not perceive them, or
perceiving we can condemn. Positively we can deliberately confront the
anomaly and try to create a new pattern of reality in which it has a place.'
Claude Levi-Strauss (1963: 95) has defined this new reality: *... all
mythical thought and ritual consist in a reorganization of sensory
experience within the context of a semantic system'. The reorganization of
sensory experience, in this case, is caused by the desire for a satisfactory
solution to the paradox of permanence. Its solution takes the form of a
type of permutation equation and a consequence of this particular
solution is the notion of reproduction. This notion 'enables the original to
meet the beholder halfway' in 'situations...out of reach for the original
itself (Benjamin 1976: 220). Its characteristic property is transportability.
Consequently, far from heralding an emancipation from the arts'
former parasitical dependence on ritual and cult value, as Walter
Benjamin (1976: 224-226) has proposed, art in the form of photographic
reproduction is but a new semantic system. The former cult value of
remembrance associated with ceremonial objects, as well as the increase in
exhibition value caused by reproduction, is preserved in this new system.
Finally, the notion of authenticity linked to the concept of uniqueness has
shifted because of the sensory reorganization, to become associated with
'the real' or permanent. Within this interpretation, the photograph
becomes a gesture of possession and preservation; it is a visual memory.
Photographic activity can therefore be considered a ritual, for it repre-
sents a formal sequence of acts, an ordered pattern, the purpose of which
is to transmit a collective message to ourselves (Leach 1976: 45). The
message is order by way of permanence. How does this ritual achieve the
'reorganization of sensory experience' by the use of the formal structure
associated with the rites of passage?
The photographic ritual ideally encompasses three major stages of
production: the taking of the photograph, the development of a negative,
and the printing of a positive. The rite of separation (also known as the

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 The ritual of photography 1

preliminal period) comprises the preparation of the sensitive negative

material, its exposure, followed by development, washing, fixation,
washing, and finally the drying of the negative. The transitional rite
(known as the liminal period or rite of margin) comprises the condition of
negativeness. The rite of aggregation (the postliminal period or rite of
incorporation) comprises the preparation of the sensitive positive
material, the printing of the negative, followed by the development,
washing, fixation, washing, and finally the drying of the positive print.
The rites of passage function as a scientific-'magicaF ritual to reduce
the subject by two dimensions by way of the preliminal period, eliminat-
ing space and time. It achieves this by the reduction of three dimensions to
two and by the abolition of motion, repetition, and absence in concrete
terms. This sequence is performed in secular time and the agent of
separation is the camera. It is therefore an indirect rite. The separation of
the subject from the profane world is symbolically achieved not only
through a dimensional reduction but also by its optical inversion and
lateral reversal, along with an accompanying reduction in scale. The rite
of separation inverts the subject while making it portable. This sequence
corresponds to the permutation of light = presence (the photographic
context) to presence = darkness. This latter relation denotes the presence
in the dark camera and film container of the latent image of the subject.
The technique is contagious, the agent transferring the subject to the film
is light, and the action is over a distance. It is indirect (again the
intermediary is the camera), and there are positive and negative volitions
associated with the taking of a photograph (for example, the sequence of
actions in the order necessary to correctly expose the film and the taboos
against opening exposed film containers and loaded cameras). The
separation is concluded in the darkroom again with rules and taboos.
This portion of the rite comprises the final act of separation, with the
simultaneous introduction of the subject into the marginal state or liminal
period. The transition is sanctified by a ritual of purification that is also
characteristic of the rite of aggregation. The final stages of separation
consist in the developing and fixing of the negative, while the purification
rituals are the intermediate stages of washing punctuated by the final
stage of drying. This purification functions to remove the chemical 'dirt'
associated with each stage in the transition from a latent negative image
to an objectified negative. It represents the permutation from presence =
darkness to darkness = absence. This latter relation connotes the dark
and the creation of a sign of absence — the negative image — in the
absence of normal (white) light by the chemical process of development. If
light = presence is associated with the normal, darkness = absence is its
opposite — the abnormal.

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8 D. Tomas

The notion of chemical 'dirt' is interesting. Mary Douglas (1970: 35)

has defined dirt as the 'by-product of a systematic ordering and classifica-
tion of matter, insofar as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate
elements. This idea of dirt', she states, 'takes us straight into the field of
symbolism and promises a link-up with more obviously symbolic systems
of purity'. According to this definition dirt makes reality comprehensible
in the following way: The ordering of reality demands not only a system
(in this case a photographic one) but also that the system should have
boundaries; otherwise it would be indistinguishable from the general flux.
It is the boundary of a particular system that dirt helps to define. Dirt
automatically defines the elements of the system as being clean or pure in
contrast to the elements outside the system, which are considered
dangerous in the sense of pollution. Thus the boundary markers of a
system are established by this dialectic between purity and pollution. In
the photographic ritual the symbolic function of 'dirt' is corroborated by
the taboos against chemical pollution in the darkroom and the purifica-
tion of both the negative and positive prints during the critical stage of
chemical development. Symbolically these two sequences of development
define particularly sensitive transformations in the general system of the
photographic rites of passage. One would expect to find strong differenti-
ation between this particular subsystem or sequence and its local environ-
ment during the passage of chemically sensitive negative or positive
material — hence the darkroom. In this case the application of this
symbolic function of 'dirt' seems justified.
The permutations between the elements of the equation are also defined
by major territorial passages. The first of these is the field of vision defined
by the viewfinder of the camera. The viewfinder symbolically takes
possession of the contents of the field as defined by its edges or boundary.
The lens-shutter system, on the command of the photographer, functions
to take possession of the light image of the subject as defined by the
viewfinder. It converts the image, by projection onto a photosensitive
material, into a latent chemical image. The choice of symbolic possession
with electromechanical mediation and optical-chemical consequences
marks the beginning of the rite of separation. The camera is the black box
that, when in use, is out of bounds and protected by taboos relating to
image destruction and sanctioned by monetary loss. It is a territorial
passage and the lens is the threshold. The darkroom is another black box
and territorial passage. Both are containers in which the transformations
take place. These transformations are achieved in the dark and are
symbolically invisible to white light. The threshold to the darkroom is its
door; 'to cross the threshold is to unite oneself with a new world' (Van
Gennep 1975: 20). Ritually these territories are dangerous because they

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 The ritual of photography 9

represent neither the former nor the subsequent state and thus are
symbolically undefinable. The transformations are therefore territorially
bounded, are performed in 'darkness', are symbolically invisible, and are
characterized by a heightened pollution consciousness.
The negative, then, represents the liminal period. Symbolically, it is
defined as an interstructural stage. It is 'betwixt and between', neither
light image nor photograph, inverted, laterally reversed, reduced, two-
dimensional, bounded, portable, eternal, and present. Yet it is 'transpar-
ent' and therefore symbolically invisible, incomplete, and socially dead. It
signifies the transformation darkness = absence. It is at this stage that the
former latent redundancy of the information-carrying capacity of this
ritual process becomes apparent. The transparent nature of the negative
creates the possibility of the infinite optical-chemical reproduction of the
information it contains. While also expressing an absence, the negative
paradoxically renders it redundant: as a substitute it is infinitely reprodu-
cible. The state of marginality is therefore defined, in this case, as the
interstructural state of perpetual negativeness.
The rite of aggregation comprising the postliminal period permits the
restructuring of the image. This rite comprises the sequence: preparation
of the sensitive positive material, printing (a latent stage), followed by
development, washing, fixing, washing, and finally the drying of the
positive print. Pollution taboos and the purification rituals are as evident
at this stage as during the rite of separation. The technique is contagious
(the agent is light), indirect (the intermediary is the enlarger), and
comprises positive and negative volitions. This rite symbolizes the final
permutation from darkness = absence to absence = light. The resulting
photograph is positive and opaque, and the optical inversion and lateral
reversal performed by the rite of separation are corrected. Symbolically
decontaminated, the image is an analogue of the real subject. Symboli-
cally it not only denotes the absence of its subject, but it connotes light by
the chemical reconstruction of the light image of the original subject. At
the beginning of the transformation light revealed presence; at the end
light reveals absence. The photographic ritual has bestowed presence on
the absence of the photographic subject; it has processed the light image,
and transposed it into a chemical analogue. The subject is now stable and
permanent as an image in society.
The photographic ritual functions to symbolically mark the death of
the subject by its optical and dimensional transformation. Further, it
freezes the 'unstructured' subject during a period of ritual and sacred
isolation and finally marks the reintroduction or reincarnation of the
subject into society by means of its 'restructuralization', in the form of a
new photographic state of social and symbolic timelessness and space-
lessness.

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10 D. Tomas

Having outlined a diachronic structural model of photography as a

cultural activity, I will now contrast it with a very particular form ofthat
activity — the Polaroid one-step photographic method in the form of its
most perfected model, the SX-70 Land camera.
The SX-70 Polaroid camera was described before the Society of
Photographic Scientists and Engineers in May, 1972 as 'Absolute one-
step photography'. In the same address Edwin H. Land (1972: 247) had
pointed out that the new process represented the attainment of his 1947
goal: To make it possible for the photographer to observe his work and
his subject-matter simultaneously, and to remove the manipulative barri-
ers between the photographer and the photograph ... so that the
photographer by definition need think of the art in the taking and not in
making photographs.' This latter distinction, however, was already
present in the first mass-produced amateur camera — the Kodak model
1888 — and was exemplified by the Eastman Dry Plate and Film
Company's advertisement, 'You press the button and we do the rest'
(Jenkins 1975: 112). The operational simplification implied by Land's
definition is implicit in all mass-produced amateur cameras and cannot be
taken as an important new characteristic of his method. However, his
earlier claim concerning the simultaneous observation of both subject-
matter and photographic work within a very short period of time
represents a more fruitful representation of the importance of the
process.3 In terms of this claim the question arises: Does the SX-70
represent a radical break with the photographic tradition and, if so, what
kind of break?
The novelty of the general Polaroid process resides in the way existing
photochemical knowledge was used.
It was, therefore, taken as a ground rule for this investigation that, in spite of the
facts that standard emulsions yield a negative rather than a positive, and that the
formation of this negative requires the use of a reducing agent, presumably
associated with some amount of liquid, a way nevertheless had to be found of
designing the 'dry' camera to use a silver halide emulsion or some equivalent
crystalline suspension. (Land 1947: 63)

The first one-step photographic process was marketed in 1948. Al-

though the camera form and final positive print were conventional, the
relationship between the positive and negative portions of the film proved
novel. This relationship consisted of the negative photosensitive film on
one roll and the positive with reagent-containing pods on the other
(Figure 2).4 The two films passed between a pair of rollers on being pulled
from the camera. The mechanical/chemical action of the process consisted
in the bursting of the reagent-containing pods (one for each photograph)

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 The ritual of photography 11

Roll of
Photosensitive Film

Frame of Film in
Exposure Position

Positive
Image Reagent Layer

Negative

Knife Blades Reagent Container (Pod)

Pressure Rolls
Roll of Positive Image
Support Sheet
Figure 2.

by roller pressure. This pressure caused the reagent to be evenly spread

between the positive and negative elements that had been brought
together on passing through the rollers. The development time was one
minute and it took place in daylight but within a film or 'darkroom'
sandwich. The first positives were sepia toned. The notion of a portable
darkroom, although not new, became radical in Land's process.5 This
miniature darkroom was made possible by the discovery within the
photographic silver processes of D.T.R. (diffusion transfer reversal
processes), to which not only Land but A. Rott and E. Weyde had made
important contributions. The latter two, in contrast to Land, developed
the process for photocopying (Neblette 1952: 234-235). This 'positive
process' is distinguished by a number of unique characteristics. The
positive image is the product of the reduction to silver in the positive layer
of the unexposed and undeveloped silver halide that has been transferred
from the exposed negative material. In this process the positive material is
therefore not light sensitive (Jacobson and Jacobson 1976: 86-87).
The SX-70 was the final product in the historical and technical
evolution of one-step photography (Figure 3). But it represents a
development that, as with the 1948 Model 95 camera, cannot be defined

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12 D. Tomas

FILM CAMERA
1947 Sepia & Pod
-1947 Roller

1950

B&W Peel Apart Film

Orthochromatic
Film Type 41
(60 See. Devel.)

1960 ' 1960

Electric Eye
B&W
Development
Time Reduced
To 10-15 Sees.

1963 * 1963 Transistorized

Polacolor Electronic Shutter
Color Film

Totally automatic process Electronic Flash

• 1972
SX70
Color - Exposure
Automatic Development Automatic
(1 - 10mins.) in Print - Flash
Structure Protected Integrated
From Light by White Circuits
Titanium Dioxide Pigment - Automatic
Layer — No Waste Materials Ejection of
Print
- Electric
Control
of Mirror
Positions
- Power Pack
in Film Unit
Figure 3.

as perceptual but rather as one of a technical process — that is, the

production of 'a dry camera which would give' in this case a color
photograph 'immediately after exposure' (Callahan 1972: 48). The SX-
70's form, although original, was developed in response to limitations
concerning portability, size, and weight. As a 'black box' it is conven-
tional. There were two main differences between the 1948 film 'package'

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 The ritual of photography 13

and the SX-70 film unit. On the one hand, there was a shift from sepia
through black and white to color (but as polaroid color films have been
marketed since 1963, it cannot be considered unique to the SX-70). On the
other hand, the idea of a negative/positive sandwich with its throwaway
negative portion was discarded in favor of a method that permitted the
reduction of the darkroom process to within the emulsion structure itself.
It is this advance that proves important. Both the negative as waste
product and the instant negative were eliminated in favor of a unique
color print that developed automatically in daylight. The print contained
within its'structure built-in mechanisms not only to terminate processing
but also to stabilize the print. The subject would appear and gradually
reach its full density over a two- to ten-minute period. During this time it
was protected by light-absorbing dyes. The single lens reflex camera, with
automatic exposure and picture ejection, was capable of exposing and
ejecting the prints at 1.5-second intervals (Land 1974).
A comparison between one-step photography and its traditional coun-
terpart is best illustrated within the context of a progression toward
automation. The one common factor is the exposure sequence —
choosing the subject and taking the photograph.
From the late nineteenth century there has been a gradual reduction of
the sequence of acts within the photographic ritual as it is presented in the
amateur market. The reduction has been toward a totally automatic series
of events on the part of the camera and in the mass laboratory
development of the negative and positive material. This reduction of the
amateur photographers' autonomy is inversely proportional to a corre-
sponding increase in both the number of photographers and the influence
of manufacturing companies. From the Eastman Dry Plate and Film
Company's 1888 'Kodak' to the Polaroid SX-70 the choice of materials
for fixing the light image has gradually been taken out of the photogra-
pher's hands. Consequently, he has retained a limited control over subject
matter (its composition and illumination) and absolute control over the
act of exposing the negative material to light. Within this tendency the
SX-70 represents an ultimate reduction of the ritual of photography to the
act of exposing the film unit to light. But the short development time
while at the photographic 'site' causes a shift in the relationship between
the photographer and his subject. It is this shift in the elements within the
context of producing a photograph that differentiates it from the similar
radical simplicity of the first 'Kodak' 1888 100 exposure camera.
The 'Kodak' reduced the ten operations that were formerly necessary
to produce an exposure to three: cocking the lens shutter, exposing, and
winding the film. When the film had been exposed, the complete camera
was sent to the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company, where the film

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14 D. Tomas

was removed and processed. The camera was loaded with a new film and
returned to the photographer, along with the processed film (Jenkins
1975: 112, 115). The SX-70 further reduces the above three operations to
one — exposing the film. The film is sold in cassette form, the camera has
an automatic exposure meter, and each film is automatically ejected after
exposure.
In contrast to the Polaroid processes, there is usually a considerable
time gap between the exposing and development of the chemical images in
all amateur and most professional photographic situations. It is therefore
instructive to compare any structural modifications within the rites of
passage (in the photographic ritual represented by the SX-70) with any
corresponding modification to the photographer-subject-photograph
relationship.
The SX-70, as a black box, does not perform in a different manner
when compared to other cameras or its genealogical ancestor — the
camera obscura. It serves within the rite of separation as the container for
focusing a predetermined amount of light on a light-sensitive material for
a predetermined amount of time. The novelty of the process resides in the
shift in the relationship between the elements of the rites of passage due to
the novel structure of the print. Its characteristics are evident in the 1948
Polaroid peel-apart film sandwich. Within the ritual model of photogra-
phy outlined in the first part of the paper, the Polaroid process marks the
collapse of the rites of passage in a very interesting manner.
The Polaroid print is no different in form from any other photographic
print. It is a two-dimensional 'surface' image produced by optical,
mechanical, and chemical means. As a radical object, then, its novelty
resides not in its form but rather in its structure. While it registers roughly
the same area of the electromagnetic spectrum as the human eye, the print
becomes a means to a new ritual relationship. (Infrared photography is an
example of a radical shift in optical content caused by a shift in chemical
sensitivity without a corresponding shift in the relationship within the
photographic context.)
The sequence of the rites of passage in the 1948 Polaroid process is left
intact while being formally modified. The content of the rites, the
permutation equation from light = presence to absence = light, is
collapsed. The reduction of the darkroom procedures associated with the
rites of separation and aggregation to within the print sandwich in the
1948 Polaroid model 95 collapses the spatio-temporal span of the rite of
margin, while still retaining the destructured condition within the ritual
itself. The latent negative stage of the separation rite is reduced to within
the camera, the boundary being the rollers. The action of the rollers and
the consequent contact between the negative and positive material

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 The ritual of photography 15

indicate that the rite of margin is distinguishable in the negative portion

of the darkroom sandwich. But the contact relationship between the
negative and positive material, with their near-simultaneous development
by the reagent spread throughout the sandwich by roller action, points to
the rite of margin's existence only in relation to the positive material.
They are no longer autonomous rites. The structural sequence of the new
relation is as follows: The 'development of the exposed negative image'
(rite of separation), 'dissolution of the unexposed silver halide, transfer of
the soluble complex to the image receiving layer opposite' (rite of margin),
'and reduction within that layer to form a positive image of silver' (rite of
aggregation (Porter 1974: 29). The formation of the positive is mediated
not by light but rather by reagent contact and silver transfer. The negative
portion of the sandwich is discarded. It is incapable of reproduction (it is
opaque) and is marginal, dirty, and literally chemically polluting. It is
thrown out.
The content of the rites, the permutation equation, is modified thus:

Light = presence -* (presence = darkness -> darkness = absence) -»absence = light

Light, formerly symbolically excluded from the rite of margin, is now

physically excluded by union. Light, formerly the contagious agent in the
rite of aggregation, is eliminated in favor of the chemical reagent. (See
Figure 4.) What happens to the image during this 'passage'? The image is
inverted and laterally reversed by the lens (the threshold of the camera
and incidentally the threshold to the rites of passage themselves) during
the rite of separation. But there is no enlarger lens to correct it during the
rite of aggregation. What happens instead is shown in Figure 5.
By the sequence of union the 'inverted' image is brought into mirror
contact with the positive. The lateral reversal of the image is corrected,
but the image remains inverted. As it enters the social world one axis is
symbolically unnatural and strange. The photographer corrects the
inversion by placing it right side up. His intervention symbolically
corrects what formerly was optically corrected within the rite of aggrega-
tion. It is a 'potent' but unnatural act. The potency resides in the
photographer's ability to correct the orientation of the image outside the
rite of aggregation as formerly conceived. In effect, the photographer
becomes a structural component of the rites of passage by this gesture;
what was formerly optically corrected within the darkroom has been
corrected by the direct gestural intervention of the photographer. How
does this sequence associated with the Polaroid Model 95 camera
compare with the sequence associated with the SX-70?
The SX-70 camera electrically accelerates the exposure and ejection of

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16 D. Tomas

Marginal State

Ritual Time

Latent Latent
Negative Positive
Rite of Riteof
Separation Aggregat hon

Secular time
Figure 4.

Negative Material

Positive

Positive Material

POLAROID MODEL 95 CAMERA

Figure 5.

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 The ritual of photography 17

the print. The use of a 'taking' mirror in the camera causes a truncation of
the signs of separation and aggregation. Within this complex the 'taking'
mirror has appropriated the position occupied by the negative portion of
the film sandwich in the earlier process. A function of the mirror is to
reflect the inverted and laterally reversed image onto the chemically
sensitive film unit. As a result of the intervention of this mirror the
inverted and laterally reversed image is corrected before the image reaches
the film sandwich. This correction, in conjunction with the print exit point
that is placed at the front of the camera, causes the SX-70 print to enter
the social world correctly oriented and facing the subject. This latter con-
sequence of the camera design is symbolically significant. (See Figure 6.)
The traditional photographic sequence can be schematized as shown in
Figure 7. The Polaroid process modified the traditional sequence with the
resulting consequences shown in Figure 8, and the SX-70 further modified
the earlier Polaroid process, as shown in Figure 9. The use of the 'taking'
mirror in the SX-70 truncates, brackets together, and effectively separates
the optical portion of the rite of separation and the optical portion of the
rite of aggregation from the associated chemical permutations. What is
the consequence of the displacement of these optical elements? One would
expect to see a change in the film structure such that the image would not
need to be corrected by mirror contact development. Simplified, the
structure of the SX-70 film unit is shown in Figure 10. It is very similar to

Subject

'Taking' Mirror

Positive Print Film Sandwich

SX70
Figure 6.

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18 D. Tomas

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 The ritual of photography 19

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20 D. Tomas

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 The ritual of photography 21
Viewing

Processing Positive

Chemicals Negative

Figure 10.

the 'darkroom' sandwich concept except in one specific and very impor-
tant detail. As opposed to the contact printing of the former process, the
SX-70 integral print is viewed as a transparency against the white pigment
compound of the reagent. (See Figure 11.) It is therefore in complete
symmetry with the already-corrected negative. This explains the optical
inertness of the rite of aggregation. What does this signify?
First, the order and status of the rites of passage are not destroyed.
Second, the apparent novelty of the process can be traced to the
reorganization of the elements within the rites, particularly as concerns
the collapsing of the spatiotemporal gap between the rite of margin and
the rite of aggregation. Modifications within the new organization are due
to a rearrangement of the optical and chemical elements within the system.
What are the implications for the photographic context?
On the one hand, with the Polaroid process, the subject is directly
confronted with its 'comparative' image — it can be 'instantly' compared.
Inversely, the photographer confronts the subject in the act of possessing
it. This act of possession is normally symbolized by the framing of the
subject and is, of course, processed by the rites of passage. With the SX-
70, the act of possession is consummated by the camera symbolically
'handing' the print to the subject. Some explanation is needed.
In traditional photography the time lapse between the initial exposure
and final positive printing is long enough for the print to become auto-
nomous. It becomes a memory aid. The result is independent of the agent
of development. At the same time, the intention of aiding the memory
can be complicated by darkroom manipulation. This idiosyncratic manip-
ulation has as its aim the creation of an independent object by the
distortion of the formal relationship between light = presence and light
= absence. The Polaroid process, on the other hand, causes, by its
particular structure, a direct symbolic possession of the subject. It
achieves this by the collapse of the spatio temporal independence of the
rite of margin and the rite of aggregation. This speeds up the developing

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22 D. Tomas

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 The ritual of photography 23

process so that they are now represented in the SX-70 by the gradual
appearance of the color image while at the photographic site. The
possession is signified by the direct confrontation of the subject by the
subject's image.
Finally, if the traditional photograph implies a multitude of possibili-
ties and choices, as for instance by darkroom manipulation, the SX-70
print has a built-in aesthetic:

The observer views the print through the clear plastic support. Light comes down
through the image layer, strikes the white pigment, is reflected back through the
image layer and back to the eye. One reason that the pictures have a quality of
'translucency' is that there is no structure at all to the dye image, even at the
microscopic level, and the mordanted dyes are seen against the white pigment
layer, which is virtually grainless. (Land 1974: 342)

The attainment of image translucency and grainlessness heightens the

sense of illusion, while simultaneously adopting a grainless aesthetic.
This, coupled to a constant print size of 3^ χ 4£ inches (with a picture
area of approximately 3£ χ 3£ inches) points to a complete standardiza-
tion of the print. This implies that change is possible only by way of
subject or modification to the chemical structure of the photograph itself.
Aside from the latter possibility, the photographer by implication has a
standard critical measure with which to confront his subject. The SX-70
can be said to create, more than any other amateur camera, the possibility
I of a critical attitude between the photographer and his subject by
confrontation.

I' By giving him a camera system with which he need only control his selection of
focus, composition and lighting, we free him to select the moment and criticize
immediately what he has done. We enable him to see what else he wants to do on
the basis of what he has just learned. (Land quoted in Callahan 1972: 48)

The subject is evaluated by the symbol of its permanence — the transient is

criticized by the permanent. One can conclude with Van Gennep (1975:
189) that 'for groups, as well as for individuals, life itself means to
separate and to be reunited, to change form and condition, to die and to
be reborn. It is to act and to cease, to wait and rest, and then to begin
acting again, but in a different way. And there are always new thresholds
to cross ...'.

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24 D. Tomas

Notes
1. A version of this paper was presented as a lecture at Optica Gallery, Montreal, Canada,
on February 18, 1979. I am indebted to Lee Drummond, John Galaty, Jean-Claude
Guedon, Lewis Pyenson, and Philip Saltzman for helpful criticism to details of the text.
2. The notation = is used in this paper as a symbol for 'is visually identical to'.
3. The direct positive daguerreotype (1839) and the positive wet collodian processes (1851)
were also 'site' bounded, but for different reasons. As processes they both proved to be
chemically sensitive and perishable. The preparation and development of the prints
were also restricted to the photographic site; as a result they proved technically complex
and were therefore out of the range of competency of most 'amateur' photographers.
The introduction of the dry plate process in the late 1870s opened the way for 'amateur'
participation in the photographic ritual by releasing the photographer from on-the-site
development. The site consequently became deritualized in proportion to the rise in the
autonomy of the rites of passage. (The territorial passage associated with the darkroom
could be relocalized away from the photographic site.) The SX-70 represents a return to
the earlier photographic context, but it is no longer similarly constrained. It represents a
'choice' while creating a modified ritual structure.
4. Figure 2 is reproduced by permission of the Polaroid Corporation.
5. Portable darkrooms were associated with both the daguerreotype and wet collodion
processes (Jenkins 1975: 17, Fig. 1.13; 40, Fig. 2.4).

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 The ritual of photography 25

—(1976). Culture and Communication: The Logic By Which Symbols are Connected, 3rd ed.
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David Tomas (b. 1950) is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at McGill University and an
instructor in the theory section of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of
Ottawa. His primary research interests are symbolic and semiotic anthropology and the
culture of technology, particularly the photographic process and scientific instruments.

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