box camera

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Special thanks to:

Ian Donen, Mike Connealy, and the moments of sunlight that made it through.

Box Camera Adventures

Experimenting with Controlling Exposure & Processing

Documenting Native American Rock Art Sites

by Mike Connealy

I have always liked old cameras, but never gave much thought to using them until I stumbled across some examples on the web of photos done with simple box cameras. I was particularly inspired by Marcy Merrill's work, as well as by the fact that she seemed to be having a lot of fun with her junk store cameras web site.

Mulling over the idea of actually taking pictures with a box camera, I recalled seeing several at a local antiques/junk store in Las Cruces. Shortly afterward, having parted company with eight dollars, I became the owner of a Jem Jr. 120 box camera.

The tin box Jem was obviously a veteran of many photo sessions and looked like it might also have logged quite a few miles rattling around in a car trunk. While it had a lot of scapes and dents, the shutter seemed quite snappy. The metal 120 film spool still in the camera indicated that it had probably seen its last roll of film close to half a century ago. Removing a single screw let me take off the camera's front cover to allow a much needed cleaning of the viewfinder windows, mirrors and shutter.

I had given some thought to the possibility of turning the Jem into a pinhole camera, but I could not quite make myself mutilate the little camera, even for the sake of art. Instead, I picked up a roll of TMAX 100 and shot some pictures in the desert hills to the north of my home. Since it seemed likely that the Jem was built to use film with an ASA of around 25, I attached a dark green filter to the camera front with cardboard and rubberbands to reduce the exposure a couple stops.

I was amazed at the quality of the images that the little meniscus lens could produce on the large 6cm x 9cm negatives. The fine detail and rich tonality was a lot more than I expected from a simple camera. Inspired by the outcome, I picked up a couple more rolls of TMAX and headed over to the near-by village of Mesilla to focus on subjects and interpretations that I felt would evoke something of the time when the little box camera was originally used. I didn't gain much from tying the camera to my tripod with rubber bands, but a tight wrap of black electrcian's tape around the friction-fit film compartment door definitely reduced the flare on the negatives from light leaks.

Experimenting with Controlling Exposure and Processing
I have tried several other box cameras in addition to the Jem and explored a variety of techniques for controlling exposure. I think the most productive has been the use of two identical Brownie Hawkeyes, which lets me easily shoot in changing light conditions. I use the same TMAX 100 film in both, but process for low and bright light by varying the film development time using Rodinal developer. Getting the right exposure seems to be very citical with the single element lenses in regard to the apparent sharpness of the image. Occasionally, I have had a whole roll with unexpectedly poor central sharpness; while poor processing technique may be implicated, my guess is that softness is mostly the result of the film not lying completely flat on the film plane. Neither the Jem nor the Hawkeye have film pressure plates, so it pays to be careful in loading the film to make sure it is going straight and even onto the take-up spool. The Hawkeye, by the way, was actually designed for the now-obsolete 620 size film; however, 120 size film can often be used in such cameras as long as one uses a 620 spool for the take-up reel.

All Cameras are Time Machines
Part of the attraction of making pictures with an old camera is the sense you get of connecting to the past. To cradle such a camera in your hands and look into the ground glass viewfinder is a way of experiencing past times in a manner that directly engages the senses. Of course, all cameras are time machines in that they let us examine the details of past events, but an old camera has a special capacity to connect us to a particular history through its scrapes and dents and the manner by which it has been acquired. For the most part, we must imagine the details, but once in a while someone finds an old camera containing a roll of film with latent images of some family outing or some other event that was thought worthy of recording a half century or more ago. Developing such images is likely to reveal one or more people looking stiffly uncomfortable under the direction of an amateur photographer, but there is also some indisputable magic to such a picture, recorded by waves of sunlight now passing distant stars and preserved by impossible chance.

Documenting Native American Rock Art Sites
Recently, I have been using my box cameras along with other cameras to document Native American rock art sites which are found throughout New Mexico.

Some observations about using old cameras and digital cameras:

It seems to me that the box cameras often do a better job of capturing the essence of the locations where the petroglyphs are found. They also help me in my goal to produce images which suggest some perceptions and ideas that may have been in the minds of the ancient artists. I have good quality film and digital cameras that certainly have superior lenses and other advanced features, but these sometimes seem to work against what I am trying to accomplish in my depictions of the rock art and the places it is found.

For one thing, there is no use in getting up too close to the petroglyphs; the way they are pecked into the stone surface creates a low resolution image which in the eye of a modern lens may simply fall apart, much as would a newspaper photo under a magnifying glass.

At the proper distance, the lens of the box camera records details adequately while also bringing out subtle tonal gradations that help to define the the designs without obscuring the textures of the natural world in which the petroglyphs are embedded.

With just eight or twelve frames to a roll of film and none of the immediacy of modern digital equipment, box cameras force me to slow my photographic pace and to give more thought to issues of subject selection, composition and exposure. While the camera is relatively simple in design and operation, the amount of work that goes into bringing a box camera image to life inspires me to devote a good deal more effort to the whole process of image making than I was previously used to.

I think I am a better photographer as a result, and I have certainly had some fun along the way.

Text and images copyright
© Mike Connealy 2003
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A selection of box camera photos taken by Mike Connealy on 120 size roll film

Jem Jr. 120 Box Camera photos

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1. calle de guadalupe