Photography: a look back

This week’s post is not about journalism, but a reflection on photography of days past and how equipment and people have changed.

I enjoy displaying my antique camera collection and occasionally do show-and-tell with young students. Even when I am asked to speak to a journalism class I normally end the session by passing around a few old cameras for the students to handle and see the roots of photography. I have to tell them not to hold the camera out like a digital camera or phone but to look through the view finder. I have about 40 of them and made myself quit picking them up at auctions and estate sales.

1936 Kodak Six-16, 1939 Kodak 30^th Anniversary Special and 1945 Encore

Hollywood disposable cardboard camera.

I was sitting on a rug in a public library with second graders explaining photography and passing around cameras when one child exclaimed, “Oh look! There’s pictures on here!” as he unrolled negatives and held them up to the light.  Suddenly, all the kids lost interest in my cool antique cameras and began digging through the box of negatives. It was then I realized these children have never seen film or negatives. Not only have they not seen film, few have held a developed photograph because most pictures they see are on a phone or tablet. I paused for a second to find the right words to explaining what film was and forced myself to start with, "Back in the old days..." (sigh)

Where have all the pictures gone?

I know people who have their digital cameras or phones full of pictures and never take any to be developed. You know them too. When Thanksgiving rolls around you huddle around their phone looking through ten thousand pictures to find their 2012 vacation cruise.

Technology has made photography easier, better, faster and cheaper. However, it saddens me a little to know we are loosing the traditions of photo albums, family pictures on walls and a drawer filled with packages of baby and vacation photos.

A bit of history

I own some of the best digital equipment available, yet I marvel at how advanced photography was more than 100 years ago. We have quality photographs from the first moon landing (1969), the first airplane flight (1903) and battlefield scenes from the Civil War (1861), all taken with cameras that work to this day.

Although viewing reflected images dates back to the 1500s, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce of France is credited with inventing the first camera in 1816, about 70 years before the automobile was developed. Using a wood box and silver chloride, Niepce darkened reflected images on metal plates. His handmade device captured images but he had not developed (pun intended) a way to stop the process and the images soon turned dark. Within 10 years he had a wood camera with adjustable focus that took pictures we still have today. Many of his cameras in museums and collections still work.

This was my wife’s family camera, a 1950 Kodak Duoflex. It was passed down to

her and we have a picture of her as a child on vacation with this around her neck.

Original price, $17.25.  Today's value, priceless to me.