I was recently invited to give a talk on film photography–something to cover the basics and introduce people to 35mm photography.
Despite all the advances and technology, a camera is just a box with a lens and a shutter that holds film, paper, a plate or similar.
To demonstrate how simple a camera can be, I figured I’d also bring along an old box camera. We have dozens of cameras going back to the early 1900s.
Most of the really old box cameras, though, are a little too big to fit in my camera bag. My plan was to bring a few cameras with just one trip from the car. (I knew I’d have to street park around the corner, plus I don’t like driving around with loose cameras in the car.)
It’s technically not a box camera, but I have this Kodak Brownie Bullet. Very 1950s. Very stylish. Bakelite construction.
It was built between 1957 and 1964. I can’t recall when I got this camera. Gotta be a decade or two ago. Longer?
There’s a little window on the back that tracks the number of exposures taken. It was blank, so no film inside, right?
Oh, hello.
The roll had been completely shot and fully wound onto the take-up spool so it could be removed and processed. (As soon as I saw the film, I added the clear tape to keep it from unrolling.)
This camera takes 127 film–popular through the ’50s but extremely uncommon today. You can get it, but few places carry it.
I’m just starting to poke around, but I’m assuming this film is from the ’50s or ’60s.
We’ll see where this goes.
