Kodak Brownie Holiday

Sometimes the most satisfying camera to use is the one that slows you down the most. Over the holidays, I took a Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash with me on a trip to Rochester, NY to its homeland where it was invented by Kodak.

This camera was made between 1953 and 1962 and takes 127 roll film, a format that’s become increasingly rare. It’s a simple little box made of brown and tan Bakelite plastic, with a plastic lens, viewfinder and a rotary shutter. It was originally sold for $5 and was designed by Arthur Crapsey, who worked on many popular Kodak models. It’s the flash version of the Brownie Bullet, which was given away as a promo camera in the U.S.

Eastman Kodak was once the epicenter of photography - famous not just for making cameras and Kodachrome film, but for democratizing photography in the 20th century. Rochester still bears traces of that legacy in its architecture, street names, and former factory complexes. I wanted to take this little camera back to where it all started.

Shooting with the Brownie Holiday Flash was a challenge. For one thing, 127 film isn’t exactly easy to find. I ended up ordering a few expired Kodak TRI-X Pan rolls from an eBay seller who had them stashed in a freezer since the ’70s, and a few more of Rera Pan 400 B&W from a niche shop in Japan. It’s an odd format. It's bigger than 35mm, but smaller than 120, and not a lot of labs process it anymore. In order to load the film, you have to take the camera apart. And the Bakelite plastic being brittle and over 50 years old, I was always worried about breaking it. Additionally, you need an empty spool loaded inside the camera to transfer the exposed film onto. That took some research and I had to make an additional eBay purchase for authentic Kodak spools.

Despite its simplicity, the camera was temperamental at times. The shutter sometimes stuck, leading to double exposures or half-exposed frames. Some shots were washed out. The rotary shutter is sluggish, often introducing motion blur if you’re not careful. And yet, that was part of the fun. With no controls to tweak, no screens to check, I was left with just composition and patience. However, even with the faster Rera Pan 400 film, I still struggled with motion blur especially on cloudy winter days. The Brownie Holiday Flash only has a fixed shutter speed of around 1/30 - 1/40 of a second. For comparison, modern cameras can shoot at 1/1000 or even 1/8000 second shutter speeds. Perhaps I should have used a tripod. With Rera Pan, you only get 8 exposures per roll, and 12 with Kodak TRI-X. Each click of the shutter felt critical.

Finding a lab that could even process 127 film took some digging. After calling around, I found one camera store, Blue Moon Camera in Portland, Oregon that still had the equipment to handle it and make physical prints. I mailed off the rolls and waited - about three weeks later, I got back real photographic prints along with digitized scans. Blue Moon Camera was lovely to work with, and their staff were very helpful in answering my questions about the process.

One aspect I had hoped to include in this project, but was ultimately unable to source, was the authentic Kodak black-and-white photo paper used during the 1940s and ’50s. During that era, many drugstores and camera shops offered a service that produced small, yellow-covered booklets containing 8 to 12 prints. I believe starting in the ’60s you could mail your exposed film spools directly to Kodak in an envelope and get a booklet too. These were typically made from lightweight cardstock and housed semi-gloss prints with thin white borders and scalloped, perforated edges. I think they are absolutely adorable. Despite my research, I wasn’t able to determine the exact type of paper or production method used. I’d love to someday replicate the look and feel of these original booklets to present my photos in a faithful reproduction. If you have any insight into the materials or techniques behind them, I’d be grateful to hear from you.

All in all, this was a labor of love. I calculated that I spent about $80.25 on film, processing, printing, digital scanning, and shipping per roll of 127 film and 8-12 prints. That comes to $6.69 - $10.03 per photo if you want both a digital file and physical print. Not economical by any means, but it was a fun experiment.

Most of the photos were imperfect. A few came out eerily beautiful. It felt like a gamble to put my trust in this plastic camera with a half-century-old design, but the results were a delight.