My Dad's First Camera

When my father was a kid, his hobby was photography. This is a story written by my father, Jay Martin, about his first camera.

My First Camera by Jay Martin

When I was 14 years old (1937), I bought my first camera. It was a Kodak fixed focus box camera that cost me $1.00 at the general store in Hardin, Kentucky, where you could also purchase smoked ham, feed, overalls, penny candy, and a suit of black clothes.

My camera used only Kodak Verichrome film. To get my pictures developed, I took the rolls back to the general store, and waited two weeks for printed pictures to come back. That was too long to wait. In Poplar Mechanics Magazine, I saw an ad by Central Camera Company in Chicago, who sold mail order. I ordered three bakelite trays, developer, fix, and paper, amber light, etc., and began developing and printing my own film.

To enlarge my pictures, I rigged up an enlarger utilizing my Kodak box camera for lense, attached beneath a large tin can I cut out at the bottom the size of the film. I cut a hole at top of can, where I inserted a light socket with an on and off switch to control exposure. and a slot between camera and can to slide my negatives through. I built a wood column with a wood table at base. It was always in focus. Every enlargement was the same size.

A couple of years later when I had more money, through Central Camera, I bought a Foth Derby camera with focal point F3.5 lense, One second to 500th of a second with delayed action shutter, for $11, that made my updated enlarger more sophisticated. .

In a time of horse and buggies, where most people in town happily had no electricity or running water, I found a modern breakthrough.

I still have a few pictures in my archives.