Baking Brownies

Just finished developing my second roll of film. Its easy. This is a revelation to me. It’s less difficult than baking brownies. From a box.

 

Now I realize there are intricacies... this developer, that developer, this temperature, that method of agitation. But there are intricacies in brownies too. And almost all of them are good.

 

I’ve spent my whole life thinking that anyone can bake brownies, but you take film somewhere to get it developed.

It's so easy that some people take those intricacies and make it sound harder than it is. lol! Enjoy!

Feel free to share the Brownies - and the images.

When you are standing in front of your "scene" and deciding how you would develop the film, when shooting it a certain way, developing becomes an art and not a task. Anyone can do it, but only a skilled few do it well. It can be more than dipping film into solutions.

 

Be greater, make it an art.

Since we are chitchatting about brownies, what comes to my mind is the Eastman Kodak Company and the Brownie Camera. The Brownie is considered by historians to be the most important camera of the last century.

 

So here is the rest of the story:

 

George Eastman invented the first easy-to-use camera for the masses. The year was 1888. The next year Mr. Eastman enlisted Frank Brownell, his chief camera designer to redesign with an eye on reducing the selling price. What followed was the Brownie camera, first marketed in 1900.

 

Now Mr. Eastman took great pleasure reading the comic strips. One of his favorites was called the Brownies. This comic strip and the cartoon characters were the brainchild of Palmer Cox, a Canadian author and illustrator. In that era, the Brownies were as popular as the Disney characters of today.

 

The Kodak Brownie sales were mainly mail order. The camera sold for $2.00. A 6-exposure roll of film sold for 15 cents; developing and printing cost 40 cents.

 

The wrapping paper used in this mail order business featured Brownie cartoon characters.

Here's a Brownie

and another

and on the inside

Not a great image... but here it is. Focus is off somewhat. Later in the roll I have several rangefinder test shots from a tripod showing clearly that the focusing error is mine, not the cameras.

 

BTW, This is from a Fujica GL690. I was not too careful re the focusing, thinking that f5.6 would be pretty generous. It's still pretty thin at this distance!