squirtiesdad
Dorothea's Christmas Camera
Andy stretches out on the ground in his corral, enjoying the warm earth beneath him and the bright sun of a December morning above.
Camera: Burke & James Rexoette No. 2 (circa 1910).
I bought this old box camera online in August from a camera store in Portland, Oregon. When I recently began to dust it out a bit and clean the glass in preparation for taking pictures with it, I was surprised to find writing on the "cone" inside the camera—the cone is the removable framework which the film winds around so as to record the light coming through the lens. Later box cameras often have metal cones, but the Rexoette's cone is made of wood, and painted flat black. Written on the cone with India ink, in neat, Palmer-Method cursive, is the following: "Miss Dorothea E. Kolstad, Warwick, North Dakota, Rt. 2 Box 18, Christmas 1921." According to the internet, Warwick is a small rural community in northeast North Dakota, founded in 1907, with a population in 2019 of 66. I was able to trace Dorothea a bit on the internet: she was born on April 5, 1905, so she was sixteen years old when she received her Christmas camera. She married, was widowed in 1985, and eventually passed away in Portland in 1997, at 92 years old, apparently still in possession of the Rexoette which she'd received 76 years before.
Film: Kodak Plus-X Pan 120 (expired 1977), developed in Arista Liquid Developer (1+9) for 5:00 minutes @ 70 degrees, and scanned with an Epson V600 scanner.
Dorothea's Christmas Camera
Andy stretches out on the ground in his corral, enjoying the warm earth beneath him and the bright sun of a December morning above.
Camera: Burke & James Rexoette No. 2 (circa 1910).
I bought this old box camera online in August from a camera store in Portland, Oregon. When I recently began to dust it out a bit and clean the glass in preparation for taking pictures with it, I was surprised to find writing on the "cone" inside the camera—the cone is the removable framework which the film winds around so as to record the light coming through the lens. Later box cameras often have metal cones, but the Rexoette's cone is made of wood, and painted flat black. Written on the cone with India ink, in neat, Palmer-Method cursive, is the following: "Miss Dorothea E. Kolstad, Warwick, North Dakota, Rt. 2 Box 18, Christmas 1921." According to the internet, Warwick is a small rural community in northeast North Dakota, founded in 1907, with a population in 2019 of 66. I was able to trace Dorothea a bit on the internet: she was born on April 5, 1905, so she was sixteen years old when she received her Christmas camera. She married, was widowed in 1985, and eventually passed away in Portland in 1997, at 92 years old, apparently still in possession of the Rexoette which she'd received 76 years before.
Film: Kodak Plus-X Pan 120 (expired 1977), developed in Arista Liquid Developer (1+9) for 5:00 minutes @ 70 degrees, and scanned with an Epson V600 scanner.