Alexandre inherited an old Kodak Brownie #3 camera from his grandfather a while back, so we spent a bit of time experimenting with making photographs with the camera over the holidays. The goal was to make some photographs in the camera and then make some cyanotype prints to show on the shelf next to where the camera is kept in Prince George.
We did a little research and production started in 1908 for the model at hand and was last made in October of 1917. We are working with a camera that is at least 103 years old and perhaps as old as 112 years. So yeah, it's old.
You may be surprised to hear that film is no longer available for a Kodak Brownie #3 made well over a hundred years ago! It uses Kodak 124 film that gives a negative about 3" x 4" in size.
We had a few options available, such as retrofitting to 120 film or cutting 4x5 sheet film to size and loading in the dark 1 sheet at a time. What we landed on what using Ilford RC paper cut to size.
The benefit in our chosen process is that we can cut the paper to size and load the camera under safelights in the dark room. We still need to load one sheet at a time, and have a darkroom close by to change out the paper "film" but the cost is low and the process is pretty easy!!
This whole process can be taken on the road by using a changing bag, pre-cutting a bunch of paper and keeping it in a box, and bringing along a second box to keep the exposed negatives until returning to the dark room. Or alternatively having a portable darkroom on site to develop the negatives. Lots of options!
We spent an afternoon making photographs with the Brownie #3 and came up with some pretty good negatives. We scanned the negatives and made some larger negatives on vellum paper (transparent) to make the 5x7 prints for the display we had set out to make. The paper camera negatives were pretty solid in that we didn't need to make many adjustments to get a decent print. The process is a success!
The mission on January 2 was to locate a similar camera so I can continue this large format experiment into the spring. We found a Rexoette box camera built in 1910, so 110 years old and made completely out of wood. (The Kodak Brownie #3 is a cardboard camera) The Rexoette also has an easier mechanism to load the paper negatives which are similar in size to the Brownie.
These old box cameras are notoriously expensive at the antique stores near Calgary, I managed to pick up the Rexoette for $20 so that was encouraging! More on the Rexoette in a future post once I've had a chance to make some photographs with it. I've included a few shots of the process we used with the Brownie and the results.
Go make some photographs!
Dean.
