You push the button... we do the rest.

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published March 31, 2014 and can be found here.

   The other day my three-year-old was shooting video of his stuffed animals with his big sister's iPad, and a wave of nostalgia crashed over me. I suddenly realized my kids will probably never get to experience joy of film photography. They'll never understand the thrill of loading a fresh roll into the back of a camera. They'll never feel those mechanical clicks and vibrations of the film advancing to the next frame. And they'll never know the excitement of getting a stack of pictures back from the developer.

How would I even explain this antique technology to them? I know, I'll Google it. Hey what do you know, here's an old manual for the Kodak Brownie Camera (No. 2)...

   Is an instruction manual really necessary? Remember the catchy slogan, "You push the button, we do the rest." This should be a breeze.

   Alright, let's load this baby up and see what she can do.

   So far so good.

   The roller what?

   Oh sh*t... total failure will result? Better pay attention here...

   Did it come with duplex paper?

   Ok, I think we're ready now...

   Stop? Have we even started?

   Ok, aim... I can aim, no problem.

   Holy damn, this is getting wordy

   I don't even know what that is.

   Is this going to require math? COME ON!

   How can this thing NOT have a portrait setting?

Finally!

   Wait, I can't see my pictures yet?

Are you kidding me with this?

And that's not all. There are 32 more pages on developing your film.

So kids, are you ready to trade in your iPhones yet? You know, for the price the Brownie really can't be beat. It was first introduced in 1900 for $1.

See the entire manual     here