National Post (National Edition)
The f-stops here
FROM BELOVED BOX CAMERAS TO INSTA-FUN POLAROIDS, TURNING A LENS ON GADGETS THAT CHANGED PHOTOGRAPHY
It's estimated on average that more than 1.8 billion photographs are uploaded to the internet each day. That's millions of tabbies clinging to tree limbs, trout-pout influencers flogging their way to social-media riches, death-wish vacationers posting from holiday cliff edges and gourmand-staged plates of goulash. Occasionally there's a profound bit of photojournalism.
But in the days before cameras became the pixels equivalent of talking with our hands — that is, before camera-enabled phones first appeared in 2000 — they were self-contained gadgets, lusted over as much for their stylishness as their technical superiority.
Wannabe war correspondents battled for rugged 35mm SLRs, bird-watchers and sports snappers opted for zoom lenses measured by the yard, and the cool kids coveted sleek European models befitting the best boulevardier.
But as with so much of modern life, we've jettisoned much that was charming in our headlong rush to convenience.
So, with a nod to flashbulbs, film canisters, f-stops and thumbs on lenses, here's a look at three cameras that changed photography.
THE BROWNIE
Developed in 1900 by inventor George Eastman, the Kodak Brownie democratized picture-taking by turning a cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming pursuit for the affluent into an affordable hobby for all ages.
A former bank clerk from Rochester, N.Y., Eastman pitched it simply as a way to promote his manufacture of roll film. But his basic machine quickly became a must-have favourite, thrusting his Eastman Kodak Co. to the top ranks of corporate America — and making the man himself fabulously rich.
Though he capitalized on technical advances in film and fixed-focus camera design, his genius lay in his marketing savvy, explains Mia Fineman, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
“By simplifying the apparatus and even processing the film for the consumer, he made photography accessible to millions of casual amateurs with no particular professional training, technical expertise, or esthetic credentials.”
With catchphrases like “You press the button, we do the rest” and “Kodak moments,” Eastman's company would become synonymous with photography and add a new word to North American dictionaries: the snapshot.
The little box Brownie flourished right through to the 1960s, and had sold in the millions by the time it snapped for the last time in 1986.
About that name: keen to promote the camera to children, Kodak chose the name “Brownie” based on the elf-like cartoon characters — mostly unknown now — created by Canadian artist and writer Palmer Cox.
THE LEICA
There was no denying the popularity of Kodak's creations, but German engineer Oskar Barnack is credited with revolutionizing the industry with his lightweight Leica, the world's first mass-market 35mm camera.
An ardent travel photographer, Barnack was working at an optical institute founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869 but was tired of lugging around heavy plates and bulky camera equipment to indulge his passion.
He began tinkering and in 1913 rolled out the UR-Leica (a portmanteau combining Leitz and camera). Further revisions followed and by 1925 the Leitz company had perfected what would be hailed one of the most elegant cameras ever invented.
Its portability placed it at the vanguard of photojournalism in the 20th century, winning praise from luminaries such as French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who once said: “Shooting with a Leica is like a long tender kiss, like firing an automatic pistol, like an hour on the analyst's couch.”
Among the iconic scenes captured by Leicas were the VJ-Day kiss in New York's Times Square in 1945; actor James Dean walking in the rain in 1955; a lean Muhammad Ali in a boxing pose in 1966; and the 1972 Napalm attack in Vietnam.
New models were introduced in the 1930s, including ones with a separate viewfinder and a shutter speed of 1/1,000th of a second, as Leicas created new benchmarks for style and practicality well into the 1950s.
THE POLAROID
With smartphones able to produce pictures hundreds of times sharper than the first pewter-plate camera obscura of the 1830s, it's difficult for young consumers to appreciate the excitement generated by instantaneous photo development. No waiting! No finicky film spooling! No accidental exposures!
Dubbed the Apple of its time, it was born of a child's plaintive cry. In 1943, American inventor and physicist Edwin Land was asked by his young daughter why she couldn't see a holiday photograph he'd just taken of her. Intrigued, Land headed to his workbench and, five years later, in 1948, revealed the world's first instant camera.
The Polaroid 95 pioneered the use of a secret chemical process that allowed film to be developed inside the camera in less than a minute. Expensive at first, prices dropped as the technology was refined over the ensuing decades. By the mid-1960s, the novelty of instant images had fully seized the public's imagination.
Remaining popular through the 1970s and 1980s, the Polaroid became all but obsolete as digital cameras went mainstream beginning in the 1990s. As DSLR devices perfected crystal-clarity image-taking, that white-bordered three-inch-square snapshot whirring out of dad's Polaroid no longer seemed so groovy.
The appetite for nostalgia, however, has no bounds.
Today, reasonably priced box Brownies are available online, hardcore hobbyists opt for 35mm film because it “has more soul,” and devoted Dutch entrepreneurs are stoking memories with Polaroid Originals, selling refurbished cameras and turning smartphone images into Polaroid photos “using 100 per cent real Polaroid chemistry.”
Photography has made remarkable strides in its relatively brief 200-year history, from clunky boxes and messy chemicals to mobile phones bristling with high-tech and several lenses.
What lies ahead is anyone's guess, but it seems certain our instinct for recording life's milestones in photographic form — even if it is tabbies turning tricks — will remain steadfast.
You press the button — we do the rest.
— KODAK SLOGAN