aunt Tilly’s camera collection

we all have an aunt Tilly … drawing is courtesy of Crabby Road comics

 

Toronto. Back in the 1980s, Don Douglas and I put on a dog and pony show to represent the PHSC. I did a slide show on milestones in the history of B&W photography up to the roll film era, while Don did the camera side with a show and tell using examples from his personal collection.

Everyone in the audience was excited to see Don’s cameras and hear just why they were important. At the time most of his collection consisted of Ansco cameras. This was on purpose: Ansco cameras were both innovative (number two always has to try harder) and they were made easy to use. Don was always keen to point out these benefits of Ansco cameras.

Case in point: Every family has an ‘Aunt Tilly” – a maiden aunt, a bit on in years and not terribly mechanical or photographically inclined. At any family outing, somebody would pass a camera to aunt Tilly so she could “take the gang”. According to Don, Ansco made this simple by having a prominently displayed red button shutter release. So you just pointed her to the group, said, hold it steady and squeeze the red button!

So I always consider inexpensive collections based on Ansco as “aunt Tilly’s camera collection”! Come by our fairs and other events and pick up some inexpensive Ansco cameras to build your own “aunt Tilly’s camera collection”. Of course there are lots of other cameras and accessories on offer …

Note: I too once used Ansco products – their 35mm transparency film (Anscochrome) and developers in the late 1950s. Their process was based on Agfa’s rather than Kodak’s Kodachrome which was extremely complex and finicky.  It was faster (ASA 32 vs ASA 10) and more flexible than Kodachrome mid last century, allowing serious amateurs to process exposed film at home. Sadly, the dyes used, especially those that created the yellows, faded fairly quickly making faded and purplish colour slides while Kodachrome transparencies remained brightly coloured showing little fading 50+ years on. Ektachrome slides often suffered the same fate as Anscochrome.

The icon I used here is courtesy of Crabby Road comics. The elderly lady is called Maxine.

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