Flashback

By Tom Poland 

 

File this column under Things You Don’t See Anymore. Sorting through my late parent’s belongings, I found a flashbulb that had never been used. Holding that one-inch bulb, I drifted back to the years when having your photo taken was a big deal. It was a time when even a bad photo was miraculous. For those of you caught up in the ballyhooed cell phone selfie understand that in the 1950s taking a photo was a lot harder than it is today.

Not a lot of people had cameras back then so when you saw someone with a camera it was exciting. Kodak still cameras and 8-millimeter movie cameras were high tech back in that simpler time. To own one was to be on the leading edge of technology, and to be filmed or have your photo taken was like being in a Hollywood movie, but you had to be patient. Something called processing had to take place. The waiting, as Tom Petty sang, was the hardest part. You would take your film to a drug store to get it processed and an eternity later when you picked up your negatives and prints, the moment arrived—you saw yourself as the camera captured you. No instant gratification. You had to wait on processing, but then a marvel came along. I also came across a wondrous Polaroid Land Camera in my parents’ possessions. Thanks to Edwin Land and the Polaroid camera you no longer had to wait a week for Spartanburg’s Jack Rabbit film service to do its thing.

Today we pop off digital pics and look at them right away. No waiting, and most shots are good quality. No postal delays mailing them to friends and relatives anymore. Just email them in a second or two, and, of course, post them on Facebook.

It just wasn’t that easy in my day. If you dared buy a “real” camera, one that let you adjust the shutter speed and aperture, you had to know how photography works and various films’ capabilities. As for home movies, Dad shot scenes with an old 8-mm camera that used a light bar. When he fired that bar up it was as if the sun had entered the room. Four powerful bulbs showered white light and you looked ghostly pale in scenes the intense light washed out.

 

 

 

Film, of course, gave way to video, except for purists who value film’s capabilities. (Some still photographers prefer film to this day.) Progress isn’t always welcome, but it never takes a break. I’ve watched photography technology with interest over the years. A lot of innovations have come and gone. Remember the Brownie camera? How about the Instamatic? Remember disposable cameras? And the little flash bulb you see in this column? It gave way to flash cubes. When electronic flashes came along it banished flash bulbs and cubes to a corner in a dark closet.

I suppose a bit of archeologist lives in me. Relics from yesteryear connect me to times past. The little bulb brings to mind old TV shows and movies. No old Hollywood crime flick was complete without a scene filled with Humphrey Bogart-like reporters with their cameras flashing away over a corpse.

What’s the little bulb’s secret? Look closely and you’ll see two copper wires jutting into a tangle of magnesium filaments, all sealed with oxygen in the bulb. When electricity hits the copper wires, a spark ignites the oxygen and the magnesium filaments vaporize. Synced with the open shutter, light strikes the film and an image results, or did.

Consider my little flash bulb obsolete, but understand that it is a survivor that may outlive its manufacturer. See the “W” on the bulb? Westinghouse manufactured that bulb, and Westinghouse has bankruptcy troubles. Too bad Westinghouse doesn’t make consumer digital cameras. Got any idea how many digital photos experts project people will take in 2017? A staggering 14 trillion. That’s a lot of flashes, knowing that many photos will be taken at night.

I don’t know how this lone bulb managed to survive. Dad must have bought a newer, better camera before using up all his old flash bulbs. Then, too, maybe it didn’t work but Dad kept it anyway. He threw very little away, thanks to the Great Depression. He was thirteen when the Depression ended and it affected him, as it did others of his generation.

Little bulbs like this one went poof and sent a flash and a strange smell into the air. Thanks to those little “poofs” my family has grainy black-and-white photos of birthday celebrations and Christmas from long ago. Being a tad sentimental, I’ll hang onto this survivor and add it to my collections of obsolescent things. Consider me, if you like, a curator of things you just don’t see anymore.

 

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

 

Tom Poland is the author of twelve books and more than 1,000 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press released his book, Georgialina, A Southland As We Knew It, in November 2015 and his and Robert Clark’s Reflections Of South Carolina, Vol. II in 2014. The History Press of Charleston published Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia in 2014. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture and speaks often to groups across South Carolina and Georgia, “Georgialina.”