They're everywhere: recording family milestones, snapping pictures of tourist sites and catching candid shots of friends.
It is hard to imagine any significant gathering in which a camera (or its technological cousin, the videocam) is not present. Photographing has become the conventional way that most of us validate events in our lives and mark passages of time.
But the widespread popularity of photography -- due in large part to the availability of relatively affordable and uncomplicated equipment -- is hardly new. The ritual is much older than we think; since the 1880s, cameras have been designed for and marketed to non-professional photographers. But the event that put photography within reach of ordinary men and women took place when the Eastman Kodak Co.'s legendary "Brownie" camera was born in 1900.
Celebrating its centennial this year, the Brownie has become a collectors' item, the subject of Web sites and, currently, the theme of a prominent exhibition, The Brownie at 100, at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, N.Y., where the camera was first introduced.
That's a lot of attention for one cheap and rather homely little box. Measuring only about 5 x 3¼ x 3¼ inches (12.5 x 8 x 8 cm), the Brownie's original body was constructed of a cardboard-like material covered in imitation leather. The camera was hand-held with a single lens and a fixed focus. The first model did not even have a viewfinder; the photographer could only estimate where to aim the camera with the help of sighting lines embossed on the lid.
But what the Brownie lacked in looks and sophistication, it made up for in affordability. The Eastman Kodak Co. marketed the original camera for a mere $1 and a roll of film (with six exposures) for 15 cents. It was an immediate sensation. According to photography historian Eaton Lothrop, over 100,000 people purchased a Brownie in its first few months on the market. In their hands, the camera was transformed from a specialized tool for scientists, artists and well-heeled hobbyists to a gadget so commonplace that today it can be found in virtually every home.
Above all, the Brownie was a tool of portraiture. Before the advent of the personal camera, the experience of having a photograph taken was exceptional and usually very formal. Dressed in Sunday best, individuals and families trotted off to the local photographer's studio to mark a birth, an anniversary, a wedding, or another momentous occasion. The sitters posing in these 19th-century studio portraits are often visibly uncomfortable.
The Brownie made the experience of being before and behind a camera familiar and provided millions with a tool for designing their own public presentation and for visually narrating their own lives. According to the scholar Patricia Holland, it allowed them "to portray the individual or the group to which they belong as they would wish to be seen and as they have chosen to show themselves to one another."
The corporate history of the Brownie revolves around the figure of its founder George Eastman (1854-1932). Eastman embodied many of the seemingly contradictory values prized by late 19th-century America. He was at once a populist and a shrewd entrepreneur with global ambitions. Like his contemporary Henry Ford, Eastman built an enduring commercial empire by exploiting innovations in technology, mass production and marketing.
Eastman professed a driving goal "to make the camera as convenient as the pencil." He first became interested in popularizing photography in 1878 after purchasing what was then a standard photographic apparatus using the collodion wet-plate process. The required photographic paraphernalia typically included a large wooden view camera with tripod, a stack of 10- x 12-inch (25 x 30 cm) glass plates, an elaborate array of chemicals, trays, and, often, remarkably, a tent for preparing plates in the field. In total, the kit weighed 18 kilograms or more. If the prospect of hauling this mountain of equipment was not enough to deter all but the most tenacious, the process of photographing itself discouraged many of the rest. Each fragile glass plate had to be coated precisely with a collodion-based (guncotton) emulsion minutes before exposure and developed soon after. The annals of 19th-century photographic history are filled with stories of negatives ruined by shoddy coating or developing, shattered plates and pure frustration.
Eastman's own discouraging experience with the wet-plate process prompted him to devise a less cumbersome method of photographing. Within months, he successfully designed a system of plates precoated with dry gelatin-based emulsions that could be exposed and developed when convenient. The Eastman Dry Plate Company -- later the Eastman Kodak Company -- was established to produce and market this new photographic technology. Subsequent refinements and inventions included a machine to mass-produce dry plates, transparent roll film and (in collaboration with Thomas Edison) motion-picture film.
But it was Eastman's cameras and, importantly, the advertising campaigns that accompanied them, that captured the public imagination. In 1888, Eastman changed personal photography decisively when he introduced the "Kodak." (The brand name was a fanciful invention of Eastman's. Always attuned to marketing, he argued that this concocted word "could be pronounced anywhere in the world" and that the distinctive sound and look of the letter "K" would imprint the Eastman label on the memory of potential consumers. Similarly, he selected the trademark brilliant gold colour for use in advertising and product packaging in order to arrest attention.)
The Kodak weighed less than two pounds and could be hand-held rather than needing a tripod. It had a single lens with a fixed focus and was preloaded with enough roll film for 100 circular exposures. As its celebrated advertising slogan (also coined by Eastman himself) announced, all the operator had to do was "press the button, we do the rest." Somewhat like today's disposable cameras, the entire box was sent back to Eastman's Rochester operation to be processed and reloaded. By eliminating the need for technical expertise and unwieldy equipment, the Kodak dramatically simplified photography. Yet at $25 for the initial apparatus (in 1888) and $10 for developing and reloading, this and subsequent models of the Kodak camera remained prohibitive for most budgets.
Unlike the Kodak, the Brownie, introduced two years later, allowed the user to change films, which were fed between two spools and replaced by rewinding and opening the back of the camera. It produced almost square negatives of about 2¼ x 2¼ inches (5.7 x 5.7 cm), which were often kept in specially designed photo albums. Roll film permitted the new amateur photographer to be spontaneous and catch candid moments. The limitations of the technology, however, meant that the subject was often out of focus and the picture less than artfully arranged. In short, they were snapshots.
Kodak began targeting working-class consumers and women with its Brownie advertising (often making patronizing associations between technical simplicity and females). Illustrated ads of the early 20th century featuring the "Kodak Girl," with her fashionable striped dress and camera always at the ready, were a frequent sight in Ladies' Home Journal, Women's Home Companion and other popular magazines of the day. Long responsible for chronicling family events, mothers, sisters and aunts now often became the family photographers and album compilers. During the 1920s, Kodak issued cameras in an array of pastel shades as well as "Vanity Kodaks," cameras with matching lipstick, mirror and compact holder, specially to women.
While appealing to adults, the Brownie was also marketed to a virtually untapped market: children. Ads claiming that the Brownie could "be operated by any schoolboy or girl," according to Patricia Holland, not only underscored the simplicity of its operation, but identified a target audience. Eaton Lothrop notes that Kodak started a children's club around the Brownie and even its memorable name may have been invented to appeal to kids.
The brand name, "Brownie," was probably an allusion to the playful sprites popularized by turn-of-the-century children's stories by Palmer Cox. Illustrations of impish "Brownies" accompanied the camera's early advertisements and decorated its packaging.
Kodak's emphasis on children as key consumers of the Brownie persisted for decades. In 1934, for example, the company offered 16-year-old Canadians a free Brownie. Of course, such gestures -- and the sheer affordability of the Brownie -- were not selfless acts of largesse. Decades before Bill Gates had a similar epiphany, Eastman recognized that the real money was to be made not in equipment but in film and processing. By making the camera convenient and affordable, he facilitated continuing and regular sales of those secondary products and services. The strategy paid off beyond Eastman's wildest imaginings.
But consumers are not the docile pawns of manufacturers and advertisers. We reinvent these tools with our use. The Brownie was a perfect example. Intended by Eastman -- at least in part -- as a means to procure regular customers, it became a tool of public affirmation for millions.
Carol Payne is an assistant professor in Carleton University's School for Studies in Art and Culture: Art History.