Evening star., 1949-03-18
This and That
BIZ Charles E. Traceweu

The latest camera develops and fixes the
negative and Immediately develops and fixes
print, and delivers 1t, too.
All that is a far cry from picture taking
when we were boys.
In those days it was the snapshot"
The only cameras for the amateur were
the box type, with fixed focus.
It is interesting to note that this is still
the most popular type.
Developing and printing Of both negatives
and prints were undertaken by every boy who
wanted to feel that he was really "takin'
pictures"
That was where the real fun came in.
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There was a glass box, with red glass.
In it sat candle.
BY this dim highland it was very dim
the boy sat, running the film through the
developer.
All was done according to the little book
that came with the camera.
The exciting task of selecting the developer
had been done.
The trays for solutions were in a neat
array
The pungent smell of the hypo solution
was something no human being could ever
forget.
1t is smell. along with that Of sassafras,
that is unforgettable
At first, one failed to wash the negatives
clean.
That made them turn yellow in time
If they were not fixed properly, they finally
faded out.
If the prints were not fixed properly, they
in turn disappeared.
1t was a hard road, at times, for the
or 10 year old, but it was lot of fun
and still is. 1t was good training. Probably
not as many small boys today go in for this
sort of thing. The lure of the developing and
printing place has been too much for all Of
us. young or old.
There was great deal of satisfaction in
developing and printing ones own. Somehow
it gave a personal side to the whole thing.
There was-and there still is-a real satisfac-
tion in handling the process from beginning
to end.
Today such early training may easily go
.on to money earning. In the old days there
were not many such chances.
\ -
Popular picture taking is a sport that
many persons still alive have gone completely
through.
That is, they have seen the whole thing,
from the old days of the big box camera
called the Hawkeye-a good name-to the
miniature cameras and the motion pictures,
and color film.
The latest gadget, that prints the picture.
is just an added development and it remains
to be seen how good it is.
The fundamentals of picture taking remain
the same.
They were the same when Brady took his
marvellous photos of the Civil War worthless.
No better pictures were ever taken than
those Brady used wet plates, and cameras
that most photographers would regard as
almost unavoidable today. But he got the
pictures. And he got them because he knew
what he was doing.
The average amateur today has many
failures. despite his good equipment because
he so often does not know what he is doing.
That background is where the average
amateur picture -taker usually falls down.
He simply does not consider it,
Therefore. his subjects head comes out
superimposed on a framed picture on the
wall, making the priced features take on a
"blockhead' effect
Or multitude of objects in the back
ground distracts from the subject
If people with cameras in their hanos
would first stop to consider the background,
before they snapped the picture, they would
get far better results