camera – Anthea Whittle

This picture machine has been in my dad’s garage for at least 30 years, he can’t remember how it came to him, but now it’s come to me.

It’s a 3A Autographic Kodak Special Model B. Kodak’s first rangefinder camera, the “Autographic” means that when Autographic film was used with it, the photographer could open a window in the back of the camera to make notes with a special stylus on the red, lightproof backing paper. This would deteriorate the paper enough that the writing could then be exposed onto the film by a 3-10 second exposure to light. This writing was then visible in the resulting negatives and prints.

I believe it’s about a century old, it has a little muck in the lens but the camera is largely in brilliant condition. It takes 122 film, but I think I can probably expose a roll of 120 through it with some fiddling. Failing that, photosensitive paper could catch a negative image to be inverted.

Also brilliant discovery: the camera manual.