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Please note: The exhibition Erica Baum: the bite in the ribbon—a paper show is closed today due to technical issues in the gallery. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to reopen it as soon as possible.

How do you get to 500 Cameras?
Authored by | Nov 17, 2011
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Our recently-released book 500 Cameras is a survey of some of the most innovative and influential examples from the nearly 200-year history of cameras in our Technology Collection. The collection was featured in an earlier book, A Century of Cameras by Eaton Lothrup, documenting the 1839-1939 period--- so of course this new book brings things more up to date. The cameras are broken down into the catalogue types we use in the archive (box cameras, studio cameras, professional cameras, folding cameras, toys, etc.) and are arranged chronologically within each of those sections. This way, readers can experience how we categorize and work with the collection every day. In my last book, Camera, we tackled a history of photography as seen through the camera and highlighted images made with them. This new book has a different focus: the cameras themselves. Each has a description and an informal narrative--- somewhat along the lines as if I were personally touring you through the collection. It’s less about the technical nuts, screws and bolts and more about why they are culturally important. The collection has over 8000 cameras, so of course picking 500 is a bit of a challenge. Right off the bat I started with those that are historically important, and that covers a lot of categories. Some were large selling products, others were milestones or ‘firsts’.  
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                         Above (top): Giroux Daguerreotype Camera: The first  manufactured camera.  Above (bottom): Page from '500 Cameras' featuring the Giroux.     
 Super Kodak Six-20: First automatic exposure control camera   Some were owned by well-known photographers:
  Alfred Steiglitz’ Eastman View
Ansel Adams’ boyhood Brownie
Alvin Langdon Coburn’s Delta Reflex    Then there’s important advances:
The original Leica: the first high-quality mass produced 35mm camera
The oldest known Kodak (No. 6)   For the cover image, we wanted a fairly rare camera people could relate to both from a collecting standpoint and just from its physical appearance. 
Cover Camera: Bell & Howell Foton 
The style of the book was designed to make the book look somewhat like a 1950s camera instruction manual- even the color choice.   Editor's note: Todd will be talking about and signing his book here this Saturday, November 19 at 1:15pm.     

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