Trailing edge technology

Up, and round to The Matriarch's for afternoon tea.

The Matriarch's having a clean-out. This was one unexpected discovery, in the original carrying case. It's a Box Brownie camera, manufactured by the Kodak Camera UK Ltd company. Opening it up, the user is imperiously instructed to use 620 Kodak film as the camera does not take Kodak 120 rolls.

It was illuminating fiddling around with it. In many ways it's very simple, appropriate technology. The two strange rectangular glass blisters, one on the top, one on the side, are periscope/lens assemblies that present the view to the operator through one or other of the small circular openings above the camera lens on the front face.

Squinting through either of these assemblies presents one with a very disappointingly blurred image. It's only after a moment's experimentation that one realises one has to hold the camera almost at arm's length (in the neighbourhood of the stomach) in order to get a pin-sharp image to appear in the blister. One that is reversed of course, because there is a reflector in the light path.

And the reason there are two blisters, one on the top and one on a side face? So that you can decide whether you want to take a portrait or a landscape format image of course! Appropriate technology...