A Brownie Moment

by Arlene Carmel

Title

A Brownie Moment

Artist

Arlene Carmel

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

This Brownie Starlet is a simple plastic point-and-shoot camera made by Kodak in 1956. Brownie is the name of a long-running popular series of simple and inexpensive cameras made by Eastman Kodak. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie, introduced in February, 1900,was a very basic cardboard box camera with a simple meniscus lens that took 2 inch square pictures on 117 rollfilm.

With its simple controls and initial price of $1, it was intended to be a camera that anyone could afford and use, hence the slogan, "You push the button, we do the rest." The camera was named after the popular cartoons created by Palmer Cox.

One of the most popular Brownie models was the Brownie 127, millions of which were sold between 1952 and 1967. The Brownie 127 was a simple bakelite camera for 127 film which featured a simple meniscus lens and a curved film plane to compensate for the deficiencies of the lens. Another simple camera was the Brownie Cresta which was sold between 1955 and 1958. It used 120 film and had a fixed focus lens.

Uploaded

February 8th, 2013

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