I’ve had a lot of technology over the last week or so. Sometimes, when I deal with a lot of technology, I find old tech comforting.
The image above is of my Mom’s camera, from when she was a girl. I like to look at it and think of the long-gone images and long-gone people once alive in its lens.
The header I’m running at present isn’t cropped as I wanted. My techno-retardedness is rendered a bit more complete by my flailings with the image cropper on wordpress. Once the original image is uploaded it reassures me that I will be allowed to crop it as I want. Yet every time I touch one of the little corner handles the image flips around like a crazed flounder — indeed it even seems to avoid my grasping any of the six little grasping points.
To hell with it, I’m going to go walk the dogs.
But first, a follow-up note — Comcast came today. A very nice technician spent some time crawling around my house running new lines, and gave me a DVR. I’m looking at it now. As it’s kind of long, I may even take a picture of it — if I could crop the darn thing, it is the right shape for a good header.
That little Brownie, for all its lack of digital clarity, took many sun-squinted pictures, dating back to world war two, of good people smiling into the camera for posterity. I hope the Canon I used to take this picture is half as lucky in the people it preserves in digital amber.
And may you all have technologically happy days!
OmbudsBen 
Love the idea of preserving the smiles of good people in digital amber. 🙂
Thanks, Truce!
It’s interesting to think of who may have had their pic taken with that old camera isn’t it.
I have an old Bush 4×5 Pressman, a Kodak Retina IIIc and an old,old box camera that believe it or not had film in it when I bought.
I’ve often wondered what is on that film and who would be staring back at me.
I love dat Brownie! My Mom has one as well that I take “analog” pictures with from time-to-time. I also still have my old Kodak Instamatic (sp?) in a box somewhere.
I took many pictures with it, including Girl Scout camp, other GS outings, marching band, and pictures of the first trip I took to DC for the Carter inauguration. Wow. Plus the random shots I took of me and my brother putting in our yard – and of him jumping into the pool from the roof and totally freaking me out – in the house where I grew up in Phoenix. He also took pictures of me thwarting the neighborhood bully with a broomstick through the spokes of his front bicycle wheel as he sailed down my driveway. Woot!
Cameras are incredible. I love my digital, but I agree with jules… there’s something to be said of the history a camera captures. 🙂
Jules, this is the reason I’d still like to have a darkroom. Wouldn’t have taken much to just develop the film and find out.
NM, you’ve got it. This is why it’s still hard for me to set down my old Minolta. But I’m trying to be better about grabbing the new DSLR, come picture time.
I guess it’s just as well that I never converted that space under our front steps into a darkroom … but part of me misses the photo-chemical stinky miracle of watching an image gather, take shape, and come in to focus. It was like meeting someone in the fog.
Great header, Ben.
During my last move in Canada I found five undeveloped rolls of film. I have no idea what’s on them. Maybe the mystery is better than knowing.
That’s the part of photography I miss in the digital world, the concrete-ness of negatives. I also miss messing about in the darkroom. I wish I had brought my old film SLR with me.
Yeah, the smell of darkroom chemicals — an odd thing to be nostalgic for. I think you ought to have them developed and see what comes into focus.
Could you have the old SLR shipped?
I moved the image from the header into the body of the post. I’ve no idea why that black border survived my cropping — but it sort of fits the theme.
I would really like to cite this website in an essay i am writing about George Eastman, i was wondering if you could help me with that.
Okay. What do you need?
well im not really sure how to cite things so im not sure what i need. do i need to cite pictures or just quotes?
never mind i got it 🙂
My Brownie was brown and black and smaller.. 127 film.. Mom use it for many year and I took it with out permition many times – I was 8 years maybe less.. Im on digital now but i keep many many smiles and tresures in film!!
Best regards from Veracruz
Mexico!