“My box Brownie was a trusted companion for
years and has given me more pleasure than I could ever imagine possible. Family
gatherings, holiday outings or a visit to dad’s old farm were just the occasion
to get my sturdy little friend out of its closet. It was an incredibly simple
camera with no dials and knobs to fuss about. My husband chose to steer clear
of me : he worked with an expensive folding camera and used an exposure meter
as a crutch all along. So while hubby was busy measuring the light and distance
I would wipe my lens clean with a handkerchief, back up the ten feet from the
group, put the sun at my back, peep into the tiny view-glass at the top and
snap away happily. . .”
--Maria
Ward
Maria’s
words bring back the long forgotten romance of box camera photography in the
first half of the twentieth century. Imagine the thrill of buying a roll of
film, loading your box and moving out into the wooded landscape on a sunny day.
On your way back late in the afternoon, you drop the film at the nearest photo
lab, or if you are adept at handling chemicals, head straight for a session in
the kitchen-turned-darkroom. Whichever the method, you are working along the
same lines as did hundreds of others in the early days. And the reward of your
labors comes on the following day when family and friends crowd around you
letting out squeals of delight, each of them eagerly passing around the snaps,
and junior enormously pleased to see himself standing beside the car with
a sombre expression on his face.
Although a
precision instrument made with the same care and thoroughness bestowed on its
more sophisticated rivals, the key feature that distinguishes a box camera is
its simplicity. Hundreds of these gadgets were in production earlier using a
variety of film sizes. Thousands were stocked by photographic dealers to be
eagerly snapped up by people who wanted to take family get-togethers back in
the home or out on a picnic, and who were just a bit scared of the intricacies
of a gadgety professional camera. Turn over the leaves of an old album and you
will find evidence in the form of those golden-brown snapshots showing granny
when she was a girl, or granddad trying to push hard against the lawn mower.
And how charming these pictures look!
