Box Brownie Part II

The Internet is a great place to learn about antique cameras. I found a copy of the manual for my 1916 Box Brownie on a photography web site.  It is a really cool manual, and has lots of useful information about the camera, as well as photography in general.

One of the last pages in the manual is a list of accessories for your Box Brownie. Of course, the "up sell" has always been popular with photography, and George Eastman was no dummy when it came to camera accessory sales. Among the list is a "portrait attachment" used for taking head and shoulder portraits.

The manual states "The Kodak Portrait Attachment makes large head and shoulder portraits. It can also be used for photographing flowers and similar objects."

Off to the Internet I go again, and on E-bay I found such attachment for sale- for 99 cents! Not really bad since it cost .50 in 1916!

I made the purchase, and it arrived all snug in it's little rusty tin:

 

On the bottom is a folded up piece of Bible paper, with all the information about the Portrait Attachment No. 1. :

The portrait attachment slips snugly in the front of the Box Brownie, and is a macro lens that changes the plane of focus inside the camera. The manual states "The subject must be exactly 3 1/2 feet from the lens; measure the distance carefully from the lens to the face."

This lens is necessary because the little glass lens glued inside the box brownie is a fixed focal lens. That means it is already pre-set to take pictures from about 6 feet to infinity. Think about those disposable film cameras, and you get the idea. The close up attachment allows you to get closer to the subject and make nice portraits. 

So I slipped the little portrait attachment lens in the camera, and amazingly it fits nice and snug. A perfect match! I was so happy that I bought the right one. 

I literally received the lens the day before I was to meet up with Kera Storrs in Bloomington for a photo shoot. Kera wears these awesome print dresses. Her dress and her style would fit perfectly with images made with a nice old vintage camera.

We first made some images with the box camera without the portrait attachment:

Then I put the portrait attachment on the camera, measured carefully with a tape measure, and made a few exposures:

I was so amazed at how well the lens worked! Of course the camera and the portrait lens are keepers, and I am going to make more images with the combo. There is something so exciting about making pictures with a 95 year old camera!