Revolution in a box

For the past 25 years, Otago’s amateur photographers have been submitting images to an annual competition run by Tūhura Otago Museum, a milestone now being celebrated by the retrospective exhibition "25 Years Captured". That such a competition even exists is partly due to a technological shake-up that took place in the early 20th century, Tūhura humanities collection manager Anne Harlow reports. 

In 1900, the Eastman Kodak Company introduced America to the first model in its innovative Brownie camera range and revolutionised photography in the process. The earliest Brownie cameras were small cardboard boxes that made use of cheap roll film, a recent invention at the time. Comparatively simple to operate and sold for just US$1, they became increasingly popular and helped make amateur photography an affordable and accessible hobby for the American masses.

Over 120 different Brownie models were ultimately designed by Eastman Kodak, evolving as technologies and fashions changed. In 1928, the company hired American industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague to design stylish and elegant cameras that would appeal to the discerning consumer.

Teague created several different kinds of Brownie over the next five years, mostly for the whole family to use and enjoy. Some designs were pitched specifically towards fashion-conscious women, such as the Vanity Kodak Ensemble, which included a beautifully coloured camera and a matching compact, mirror and lipstick holder.

The Beau Brownie itself was only made for a relatively short time, between 1930 and 1933.

It came in two versions to accommodate different sizes of film roll: the No. 2 and the No. 2A.

Both versions were available in five bold colours: black, blue, rose, brown and green, with a fashionable art deco enamelled design and chrome border on the face plate and textured leatherette in a matching colour on the body of the camera and its case. They were elegant and modern — gorgeous little boxes of technology only about 13cm tall.

Although the Beau Brownie was easy to operate in comparison to previous kinds of camera, it still required a 38-page instruction manual and some pretty dexterous fiddling to make it work — a far cry from the point-and-shoot options most of us enjoy today.

If you’d like to see what steps people once navigated to use their Beau Brownies, a PDF of the original manual can be found online.

The Kodak Brownie camera series is well represented in the museum’s collection, as are all the other big names in photography, and there are a number of noteworthy cameras currently being exhibited at Tūhura.

These include one Sir Edmund Hillary took with him during his ascent of Mt Everest (see Director’s Choice in the main stairwell) and a Canon F-1 owned by artist Ralph Hotere, which is part of an historic camera display in "25 Years Captured".

However, none are quite as fabulous as the Beau Brownie, in my opinion.

Anne Harlow is collection manager humanities at Tūhura Otago Museum.