Sunday, April 13, 2014

K is for Kodak. (c)

Cameras seem to change more slowly than some technologies...

My Grandma M. had a Brownie camera.  Quite frankly, I don't recall her ever using it, if she did, I was fairly small, at any rate.  I like looking at some of the old black and white photos she has, with the pretty little scalloped edges.  Later, they became the clean, straight edges that my photos had.

The cameras I think of when I had photos taken were with the flash cube.  Oh, my, you didn't want to look into one of those things!  Even a quick glance was enough to have blue-green spots for a while, making it look like you had entered a disco somewhere.  Especially if it was a group gathering, pop, flash, pop, pow, flash.  And then REMOVING that little cube!  I think putting a finger on a red hot grill couldn't be much worse...

Family would take the requisite 4 pics, then wait to get the cube removed to take another four.  Sometimes, if someone was impatient, a hot pad would be employed.  I wondered if the camera would melt, if you took too many pictures.

(With one or two of my family, I hoped so, but it never happened...)

Then Mom got this cool rig, you took the photo, and it pooped out this little card, and I sat fascinated. A gloomy shadow formed, then took shape, then finally became a nice picture, all finished and ready for the photo album.  I took a few pictures that way.

Most of the photos I took at that time were of my animals.  Which, didn't usually turn out too well.  (If I'd saved them, I probably have the world's largest collection of cat derrieres.)  I didn't take too many photos, it seemed like I had other things I wanted to do, and the one camera I took to camp was dropped in the water, (along with the owner), and ruined, and I just lost the inclination.

Much later, after I was married, Husband and I picked up a digital camera.  Other than the one I have is rather slow, I really enjoy taking pictures.  I don't feel like I am wasting film with a bad shot, and I don't have to buy reams of cubes to take pictures.  Kind of a battery hog, but I guess you have to have some method of getting from point A to B.   

But my animals still seem to be my major focus...








But not as many cat... butts, at any rate.  I am unsure if this is an improvement...

5 comments:

stephen Hayes said...

That kitty close-up looks like a cat selfie.

messymimi said...

It is, you can tell people it was a selfie! (grin)

You do bring back memories with the talk of flash cubes. From what i understand, Elvis used to float them in his swimming pool and shoot at them with a small caliber rifle until they would explode.

MunirGhiasuddin said...

We lived in Rochester N.Y for just about four years. a lot of people in our neighbourhood worked for Kodak. Now we hardly remember the name. Thanks for the reminder.

Willow said...

My animals have always been my main focus with my camera too :)

Anonymous said...

my father in law worked for Kodak for many years and now works in a camera store. I love it when he finds the great old cameras to share with us. I really miss the slide shows of our family when we were growing up. We used to play theater in my grandparents basement and view the slides all the time man were those the days!