Family Camera History - Part 1

Stan Cooper with his movie camera.      Martha with her Kodak 300 Instamatic.

Photo by Mary Cooper with Kodak 104 Instamatic.

The Cooper family has a burdened total of pictures, negatives, slides, and cameras collected from the past century as stated in that order. I finally have most of them organized in such a way to easily find them. I am still in the process of downloading and organizing the most important ones on my computer.

My mother's book

My father's book

Both of my parents started their own photo scrapbooks at a young age in high school. My father’s included his full baby book with facts & pictures along with a photo book started when my father joined the Navy in 1941. My mother also had a photo album started in her teens with another she kept during her twenties in nursing school along with the hospitals in her nursing career. My mother also created scrapbooks with ephemera to remember. 

Mother's scrapbooks.

I had these albums marked by their size to purchase the proper size acid-free storage box to store them in. I now have them wrapped in acid-free tissue paper stored in several boxes in a cool dry central closet. My mother had them loosely stored in a huge box in the garage which dealt with heat, cold and dampness along with silverfish. Oh, my!

After my parents’ marriage, they both continued to take shots & make albums as their family grew. My father utilized their interest with family movies, which my brother is finding ways to preserve. 

This post will focus on the cameras I remember & discovered as I was combing through my mother’s belongings after her death. 

My first evidence of one of my mother’s camera is this shot of her taken around 1948 when she was a nurse serving at the Annapolis Naval Academy Hospital from 1947 to 1949. 

Lt. JG Martha Gabuzda

Martha Gabuzda is standing in the front with the camera. It looks like the Brownie Reflex Synchro model made from 1940-1952.

What camera did she use in the 1930s for her first photo scrapbook? While I was going through a drawer of labelled family heirlooms, I found this camera. Kodak Six-20 on the backside and Kodak Anastigmat on the lens. I discovered that this model was produced & sold from 1932-1937. So this was my mother’s first camera that she used to take photos through her teen years!  

When you open the photo count, you find the #6 or #9 indicating the number you used or have left. I found a local camera store that took out the roll of film in a dark bag. The clerk had difficulty getting the cartridge out as the rewind/forward wheel had jammed. No wonder mom did not finish the roll. I will share the photos when they are developed into prints.

Undeveloped roll of Kodac 620 film.

Here is Martha in 1938, age16, as a drum majorette for her high school.

I found two Kodak Instamatics in a box with photo supplies including undeveloped film rolls with different types of flashbulbs. They were the 104 and 300. My first camera was the 104. It was sold from 1965-1968. I purchased mine the summer of 1968 before we drove across the country from the east coast to the west coast. Mary had a roll of black & white film, while Martha had a roll of color film. I am grateful for this as I can tell who took the photos during our travelling summer.

Mary holding her first camera waiting for "Ye Old Faithful"
to blow at Yellowstone National Park in 1968.

Photos by Martha Cooper with Kodak Instamatic 300.

At this time, mom had her Instamatic 300 which was sold from 1963-1966. Mother purchased hers while we were stationed in Japan, which I found the receipt for it. The 300 suffered from mold on the front, top, bottom and both sides outer case with nothing on the back. The 104 has mold only on the sides & bottom. Both were stored in faux leather cases.  

Anyone have an idea of how to take the mold off of these cameras?

Mom’s last camera was the FujiFilm Smart Shot. The camera hanging around her neck here in 1988 looks to be a different camera; this Smart Shot also had undeveloped film still in the camera to be looked at, which I am also currently getting developed into prints.

I purchased my second camera in 1983, the Pentax K-1000. I was very interested in learning the aspects of photography at the time. This manual camera was a great mentor for this elementary teacher. I took a class that included the usage of the darkroom. One of my schools had a darkroom on campus for me to use as I was the photographer & editor of the elementary school's yearbook for many years.

I eventually needed an automatic SLR camera to take better photos of students in action. I chose a Ricoh camera. I used the Ricoh until I dropped it during the summer of 2005 visiting family in New York. 

I received my first digital camera for Christmas in 2000 from my brother. It was a large green box camera, the Agfa ePhoto 780C.

I struggled to learn how to use it with my computer.  

I returned to digital cameras with my Canon Powershots. It became easier for me to shoot, download & print my own pictures. I am currently using my second one. I had a silver one from 2005 & a pink one from 2010. It is an SD1400IS.

I bought an iPhone in 2013. I use that for my photos 95% of the time with the pink Canon with the remaining 5%.