Surrender at Pine Ridge Jan 15 1891

[grahamew]

I realise these people may not be Oglala, but I'm hoping the Pine Ridge reference will be good enough. These are are on the Heritage Auction site. As yet, there's no further information. The assumption, I guess, is that they're by Kuhn or Trager or someone working for the Northwest Photo Company in Chadron; although it does seem they may have bought other people's photos and sold them with the company imprint. Whoever they're by (Cross? Meddaugh?), I haven't seen them before.

[ephriam]

These distinctive round images were produced by the first models of the Kodak camera. These cameras were made for general public use, generally not used by professional photographers. This suggests that they were taken by someone other than Trager, Kuhn or other commercial photographers. Very interesting.

ephriam

[grahamew]

Thanks. Makes me wonder how many more there are!

How can you tell they're taken with a Kodak?

[ephriam]

You could have either 60, 100 or 150 exposure length film loaded into your Kodak so that suggests there are more images out there from this camera!

The first Kodak camera, introduced in 1888, and the Kodak No. 1 introduced the following year produced round images 2 1/2 inches in diameter. The Kodak No. 2 was larger and the photographs were 3 1/2 inches in diameter. The film was preloaded into the camera. You took the photographs and then when done, sent it in with your payment. Back at Eastman's, they opened the camera, printed the film for you as the distinct round images, mounted them on the cardstock backing, and then sent you back your camera with new film loaded.

The initial design problem was the lens, which produced fuzzy edges on the images. To compensate, the edges were masked out, creating the round image. Later versions introduced a new lens which remained sharp to the edges and the masking was dropped.

The round images therefore are the distinctive character of these early Kodaks.

[grahamew]

Thanks!