Shorpy being the Historic American Photo Archive, and me being American and at this point in my life historic, I present from my archive a nighttime photo experiment I performed in winter 1962 while a teenage camera geek. This is how I made this time-exposure of our Larkspur, California house: I turned on all the lights in the front-facing rooms, also those on the porches and front walk, and added one more (my desk lamp) below the front porch. I set up the camera (an old c. 1920 folding job) in the cactus garden, opened the shutter, ran down to the bottom of that stairway and wrote out my name with a little flashlight, then ran back up and closed the shutter. Voilà! I used that old camera, a Kodak Folding Autographic Brownie 2A, because it was the only one around the house then that could take time exposures. No tripod receptacle, so I had to balance it on something or other. (I know it's winter because of the burlap sacks covering the lantana for frost protection. Oh, and before you ask, no, we're not related to the Addams family.) Scanned from the original "116" 2½ x 4¼ negative, slightly cropped at top. View full size.
Shorpy being the Historic American Photo Archive, and me being American and at this point in my life historic, I present from my archive a nighttime photo experiment I performed in winter 1962 while a teenage camera geek. This is how I made this time-exposure of our Larkspur, California house: I turned on all the lights in the front-facing rooms, also those on the porches and front walk, and added one more (my desk lamp) below the front porch. I set up the camera (an old c. 1920 folding job) in the cactus garden, opened the shutter, ran down to the bottom of that stairway and wrote out my name with a little flashlight, then ran back up and closed the shutter. Voilà! I used that old camera, a Kodak Folding Autographic Brownie 2A, because it was the only one around the house then that could take time exposures. No tripod receptacle, so I had to balance it on something or other. (I know it's winter because of the burlap sacks covering the lantana for frost protection. Oh, and before you ask, no, we're not related to the Addams family.) Scanned from the original "116" 2½ x 4¼ negative, slightly cropped at top. | Click image for Comments. | Home | Browse All Photos