While I have plenty of damaged and decaying photographs in my collection to fit with Sepia Saturday's image prompt this week, I'm going to instead focus on another "flaw" that occasionally appears on photographic prints and negatives, and in particular has surfaced in two sets of early amateur photographs that I've blogged about recently: A Grand Tour of Europe and Summer Holidays in Derbyshire.
"Haddon Hall Terrace," August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 75 x 101mm (rotated)
(Page 3, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Bill Nelson pointed out that one of my 1903 Derbyshire album prints had what appeared to be a "circle with a '3' in it" in the lower right corner (lower left in the rotated image above).
Detail of image on Page 3
Even with some enlargement and enhancement of the image, I couldn't be absolutely sure of what it was.
Ship and tugboat arriving in unidentified harbour, 1904, Ref. #10c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
However, when Bill sent me a scan of a slightly over-exposed frame from his 1904 Grand Tour negative album it had a very similar, but much clearer, artifact.
Detail of image #10c, inverted & normal (with some enhancement)
In this case, the number "5" in a circle is accompanied by a line on each side. Knowing what to look for, I think I can now see similar bars either side of the "circled 3" in the enhanced image of my own print.
Extract from manual for No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak
Courtesy of Mike Butkus' Camera Manual Library
The number in a circle is very similar to the numbers that were printed on the outside of the film's paper backing, which show through the little red window in the back of the camera to indicate when to stop winding on the film (see image above extracted from a No 3 FPK manual). In this case, by contact between the reverse of the backing paper and the side of the nitrocellulose film which has the photographic emulsion, my theory is that some transfer of the ink has taken place while the film was still rolled onto the spool, either before or after exposure.
In the case of my 1903 print, the "circled 3" is dark, and if it was brought through from the original negative - and, from careful examination of the print, I believe that it was - the implication is that it was reversed, and therefore showed lighter than the surrounding emulsion on the negative. The mechanism by which the ghostly "circled 3" was produced cannot have been a physical transfer of ink, and is more likely to have been a chemical alteration of the silver salts in the photographic emulsion by contact with the acidic compounds in the ink, thus bleaching the parts of the negative that were in contact with the ink on the adjacent paper backing.
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Model A, 1900-1901
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Donation of Alf Rendell
Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne
The only reservation I have with this explanation is that I would have expected, by comparison with the window on the back of the No 3 FPK that I, quite by coincidence, photographed this week, for the number to have been lower down, closer to the bottom edge of the negative. The position is correct on my 1903 print, but is more centrally placed on Bill's 1904 negative.
Although the No 3 FPK was by far the most popular folding camera of this size, the No 3 Ensign Carbine was another which used 3¼" x 4¼" film (Ensign E18 format), but from what I can tell the window on this model was also located close to the bottom edge. What I'm now searching for to test my theory, but haven't yet found, is some examples of early roll film.
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Model A, 1900-1901
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Donation of Alf Rendell
Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne
Since I have the opportunity, I'll share a little more about this recent donation by retired Tauranga commercial photographer Alf Rendell to the Tauranga Heritage Collection. This particular example of a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak was produced some time between Oct 1900 and Jun 1901, and still has the original red cardboard bellows. The serial number 27421, as is usual on Kodak folding cameras, is engraved on the silver foot which folds out of the base plate and serves as a stand to support the camera when taking photos in the "portrait" position.
Cloth-lined bellows were fitted as standard from June 1901 onwards, since the older versions tended to tear, and from 1910 they were supplied with black instead of red bellows. Many older cameras were later retro-fitted with black bellows, and it is rare to find an old model still with the original red bellows in such good condition.
Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement for the No. 3 FPK
From Munsey's magazine, c.1901
Courtesy Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection, Item K0560
George Eastman wanted "a camera in every household," and in the 15 years after the first Kodak was produced in 1888 managed to amass over 60 different models. The first in the series of Folding Pocket Kodaks was brought out in 1897, using the then brand new technology of daylight loading film. The No 3 FPK was introduced in April 1900 and rapidly became the most popular of the range, particularly in the United Kingdom, possibly since the negative size was identical to the already popular quarter-plate format used in many glass-plate cameras. Between 1900 and 1915, when production of this camera ceased, about half a million cameras were sold. The camera was produced with a wide variety of lens and shutter options, and went through a number of developments until production ceased with the Model H in 1914, it being replaced by the No 3 Autographic Kodak.
The construction of this camera "set the pattern for the design of popular roll-film cameras for the next fifty years." (Coe, Cameras, 1978) A smaller version, the No 0 Folding Pocket Kodak, eventually morphed into the Vest Pocket Kodak, the soldier's camera which became so popular during the Great War.
References
Standard Film and Plate Sizes, on Early Photography
Coe, Brian (1988) Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.
Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital, New York: Sterling, 360pp.
