more than skin-deep

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Robert

getting a chest x-ray in 1939

Toronto. Do you remember when you had an annual chest x-ray to detect TB? No? You must be a lot younger than me! This Popular Mechanics article from the January, 1939 issue shows how Westinghouse made an ‘electronic flash’ gizmo to take X-rays in a fraction of a second to avoid unintended movement.

I remember getting an annual x-ray after WW2 when just a little kid. A photograph depicts the x-ray system in action. I can still remember pressing my little chest against the film plate like the girl in this photo.

Thank you to my good friend and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar for sharing this interesting article about chest x-rays before WW2. It brought back some more memories of days long past.

The title is a play on an old saying, “Beauty is only skin-deep” which implied that a person’s personality is more important his/her looks.

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not all brownies are edible

Posted on February 8, 2022 by Robert

Cover of a 1902 patent by Frank Brownell

Toronto. My mom used to make delicious brownies – deep brown and chocolaty like a very dense chocolate cake. Sometimes she would add walnut pieces too! In the late 1800s, Quebec-born Palmer Cox created the Brownies to  illustrate his Brownie stories. Canadian-born Frank Brownell had a camera factory in Rochester making well constructed but inexpensive cameras. Kodak bought his talent and production to create many cameras, including the inexpensive line of Kodak Brownie cameras. And in 1902 Kodak bought Brownell’s factory and hired him to continue running it and designing cameras.

In March of 2007, Wayne Morgan spoke to us on “Palmer Cox, The Brownie Craze, and the Brownie Camera“. Many thought the name Brownie came from Frank Brownell making the famous little cameras, but it was a name created by Palmer Cox. Cox was born near Granby, Quebec, emigrated to the States, and as an older man returned to spend his last years in Granby.

My thanks to good friend and photo historian, George Dunbar, for suggesting this idea to me – and the idea of browsing the US Patent Office (USPTO) for photographic insights from the days when ideas were patented for protection. Try to  find patent No. 691,592 for starters.

 

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we have a winner!

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Robert

Univex 8mm Movie Camera

Toronto. Sometimes a low price and great hype pay off. This combo paid off in spades for the Universal Camera Corporation in the late 1930s through the very early 1950s when its Univex 8mm movie cameras introduced a huge number of snap-shooters to the world of amateur movie making.

You can read more about the camera here (be careful dodging the ads). The tiny image of a Univex 8mm  camera is also courtesy of Mike Eckman. Take some time to browse his site!

The ad itself is courtesy of my good friend just east of here, George Dunbar. It is from the January, 1939 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine.

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around the world in 80 photographs

Posted on February 6, 2022 by Robert

He Stokes The Fire Showering Her With Sparks, 2020 © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar / courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery

Toronto. Stephen Bulger Gallery has announced its 2022 calendar of exhibits, the first being “WANDERLUST” or “Around the World in 80 Photographs” featuring a number of artists and running from January 29 to February 26 of this year. At one time Stephen was a member of the PHSC. His gallery is located here in Toronto.

COVID-19 rules are listed on Stephen’s website and follow the current guidelines for the city and province.

Speaking of COVID, if you wondered how Pfizer and Moderna vaccines work, or how such a vaccine could get on the market so fast read “The Code Breaker” by Walter Isaacson which is about Dr Jennifer Doudna and her contemporaries and the discovery of CRISPR and a few similar techniques to ‘splice’ humans genes. The discoveries led to collaboration and ways to test and protect against this nasty disease.

 

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an article with a view (master)

Posted on February 5, 2022 by Robert

Article for the revolutionary
View-Master in early 1941

Toronto.  Over time, stereo has popped up as a fad – as photo cards in the late 1890s, as cameras in the 1950s, as movies, as TVs and in 1939 as a child’s toy called a View-Master. This wonderful toy took advantage of Kodachrome, the recently invented and marketed ‘wunderkind’ of colour films first for 16mm movies, and then 35mm films and then even larger films. The idea of seven stereo images on one compact reel caught on and the toy grew in popularity over the years.

In September of 2006, we were treated to a presentation on, “The History of View-Master” by a couple famous for their collection of view-master products – Mary Ann and Wolfgang Sell.   It was a wonderful night, especially as both me and my wife had View-Masters as children (I still have hers).

A grateful thank you to good friend and fellow collector, George Dunbar, for sharing this article from the March 1941 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. The article shows the original View-Master. It brought back many pleasant memories to me.

Note. The title of this post is a riff on the Noel Coward song, “A Room with a View” from the 1928 London review called, “This Year of Grace“. I have a record of Noel Coward singing at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas many years ago (including this song).

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23 skid-ZOOM

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Robert

Toronto. Well our  twenty-third executive meeting via ZOOM was held last Wednesday and we did decide a few things of note: Most importantly, our spring fair location will be taken over by Elections Ontario for 2022 so we are busy sourcing an alternative locale (or date).

Our FEBRUARY presentation with Dr Christine Slobogin on the 16th will continue as planned – see this month’s PHSC News (or a later post)  for details. Also for the first time since our inception, we will be taking a MARCH  BREAK – no presentation in March. Further, our April meeting via ZOOM will be the LAST FRIDAY of the month (April 29th). It will be a very big affair jointly hosted by the European Society for the History of Photography (ESHPh) and ourselves. Our president, Clint Hryhorijiw, will be one of the three moderators while our programme director, Celio Barreto, will operate behind the scenes. More information to follow in the next two months.

Finally, a big change is the decision to make our membership year from January 1st to December 31st effective immediately. This means memberships ending April 30th of 2022 will be extended to December 31, 2022.

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a camera called Iris

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Robert

Ad for ill-fated IRIS “minicam” camera using special film.

Toronto. After the minicam revolution took off, some camera makers tried to ‘fake’ their products as great minicams. Univex in the States tried a number of different models and business plans (guessing this from models and ads).

For the Iris camera, Univex decided to try a “Gillette Razor” business plan – use customized film made exclusively for use in the Univex Iris.

Great idea, bad timing. The company chose Gevaert in Belgium to make the film. In the fall of 1939, WW2 began and by 1941 America was at war too. Previously, Gevaert had combined with Agfa and Agfa (German owned) was seized as an enemy company. Good-bye Gevaert. Good-bye special film. Good-bye Iris sales.

Camera collectors may enjoy this site about camera patents (indirectly, it has somewhat confusing links to patents awarded to various camera makers – be careful on the downloads) and this pdf of patent 110,028 dated June 7, 1938 granted to Universal Camera for the outward design of their ill-fated Univex Iris.

A big thanks to good friend, George Dunbar, for sharing the above Popular Mechanics ad from its January, 1939 issue.

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a rip van winkle photograph

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Robert

“Days in the Sun” by Regina Valkenborgh (Photo: Regina Valkenborgh / University of Hertfordshire)

Toronto. Shades of pinhole photography! Madeleine Muzdakis wrote this article for “Modern Met” on December 15, 2020. The article, “University Discovers Photo With 8-Year-Long Exposure That Was Taken With a Beer Can“, describes the technique used.

The article begins, “The London 2012 Summer Olympics had its closing ceremonies in August 2012.

“Just one week after the athletes dispersed, a masters student in fine arts began a project at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Regina Valkenborgh crafted a pinhole camera out of an aluminum beer can, duct tape, and light-sensitive photographic paper.

“Affixed facing skyward on the side of the university’s Bayfordbury Observatory, the camera was forgotten—weathering the elements for eight years and one month. David Campbell—the observatory’s Principal Technical officer—finally got around to removing the camera this fall.

“Inside, he discovered the longest-exposure image ever captured, showing eight years’ worth of solar paths across the sky.”

My thanks and a tip of the hat to good friend and fellow PHSC member Russ Forfar deep in the snow and woods of Central Ontario.

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in the days before CAD

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Robert

article about pre CAD days in the aircraft industry

Toronto. Computer Aided Design (CAD) made huge changes in how products were manufactured.  Before CAD, photography stepped in to speed up aircraft production. This article from the February 1941 edition of Popular Mechanic explained how a giant camera and projector could create specialized aircraft parts life size (the article sorta mixes cameras and projectors).

This article sparked the imagination in the time before we had computers per se (in Bletchley Park, England, Alan Turing used what were really computers to interpret data from the WW2 German Enigma machines, which were heavily encrypted). The computers used (called “Bombe”) were secretly destroyed after the war letting America tout itself as the inventor of computing, only learning of the Bombe and Alan Turing many years later.

George Dunbar, that intrepid photography historian spotted this article and very generously shared it with us. George retired from IBM which took on the American computing mantle and soon  became a world wide power-house in the computer industry.

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light up the night

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Robert

article about lighting up the sky for photos in 1941

Toronto. Photography played a key roll in WW2. High flying aircraft with aerial cameras mapped the ground searching for enemy troops and armaments. A bright idea, tested over upper NY State, was the ‘light bomb’ described in this January 1941 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. The camera was flown ‘a mile high’ at night while far below a bomb exploded illuminating a wide area to daylight brightness.

Photographs were taken and then processed. Various colours of light were used in the trials to bring out camouflaged areas. Years later, we had people like the late Ken Smith talk about the runs over both enemy and allied territory during the war and after to map out the terrain. Two runs of film could be aligned to create so called ‘hyper stereo’ images exaggerating hills and mountains to aide in mapping the country side.

We owe a thank you to that fine photographic historian, George Dunbar for sharing this snippet of history with us and bringing to mind some of the presentations  we were privileged to see and hear.

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