MRS. COLEMAN up close and personal

On March 29th I did a post about a photo of an apartment building in Los Angeles in 1915. You can see that original post here. Well, another trip to the antique store provided me with the following photo of Mrs. Coleman, up close and personal.



It's nice to see her as more than a tiny figure on the front steps of the lovely old building.

KODAK INSTAMATIC 814 advertisement

Occasionally when I find old camera ads I run them to remind those of us who are collectors of vintage snapshots how important these old cameras are to our collections.

Here is another vintage Kodak Instamatic 814 ad from the July 1969 Sunset magazine.



To see more vintage Kodak ads click on the Kodak link below in the labels.

KODAK INSTAMATIC 814 advertisement

This vintage Kodak Instamatic 814 ad is from the May 1970 Sunset magazine.



To see other vintage Kodak ads click on the "Kodak advertisement" label below. Another Instamatic ad can be seen here.

The COLEMAN'S CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN

In 1915 the Coleman's lived at 2118 West 16th Street, Los Angeles, California. It was their "Home, Sweet Home." If they wished to return today to this address they'd not find their lovely two story apartment building. The address is now a rather nondescript neighborhood of single family homes. But then it's not actually the same street. I'll get to that.

Click on image to see it larger.

In 1915 they rented the upper left apartment and placed some potted plants on the upstairs railing, one inside a soy sauce bucket. Perhaps there were other uses for such buckets, but in Hawaii we called it a soy sauce bucket and I still have one I use as a stool.

I'm assuming that's Mrs. Coleman with her hand on her hip laying claim to her home. A beautiful building.



Want to rent one of the apartments? Just call the realtor at A-4234.



I give you the soy sauce bucket planter.



So what you'd find today at this address is the image below provided by Google.

But thanks to two readers I now know that indeed the building does still exist and is not the nondescript single family home shown above.

The first comment opening my eyes to the possibility was from Daniel who enlightened me to the fact that over the years many street names had been changed in Los Angeles. Then thanks to Mike Brubaker of TempoSenza Tempo I can now show you what the building looks like today. It's still a stunning building even if the doors have bars on them. Not a particularly nice neighborhood, but it looks as if the owner is keeping the place up. You can see a 360 shot of the neighborhood here.

Thank you Daniel! And bravo Mike!

___________

To see an ad for a vintage Kodak Brownie Starburst camera visit my other site Tattered and Lost Ephemera.

Vintage KODAK AD, 1949

I'm always interested in the ads Kodak ran to convince people of the importance of taking snapshots of their lives. When you look at other ads for the competition, specifically for cameras, they simply don't have the same feeling Kodak was pushing.

This ad dates from Collier's magazine, August 1949.

Click on image to see it larger.

Kodak knew how to push emotional buttons. Early on they knew how freeing a camera was for a woman and most of the very early ads featured women with cameras having fun. Then they pushed the idea of family memories. I'm not even sure what they're pushing today. I don't think I've paid attention or noticed a Kodak ad in a long time.

And let me just say, even though I really enjoy my digital cameras, I miss film. I miss the smell of the film when you opened up the bag and took out the little metal can. I still have a few of those old cans, used before they went to the plastic "cans" which were useful, but never as fun.

Things change, they say for the better. Everything is geared towards faster and easier. I guess I never found loading film into a camera to be a chore. I enjoyed threading it on the sprockets. Now I just have to make sure I turn the flash card in the right direction and never have to worry about changing it on a sunny day.

But bless Kodak for pushing the use of their product. Without it I doubt this blog would exist.

KODAK IN HAWAII

I found this little ad online in a book called The Aloha Guide: The Standard Handbook of Honolulu and the Hawaiian Islands by Ferdinand J. H. Schnack, published i n 1915. I wish I could get my hands on a copy of the book. I found it at Google Books which unfortunately never completely loads for me. But if you'd enjoy taking a look at the book click here. Lots of fun old ads and information.

KODAK and snail mail

I'll let this 1964 ad speak for itself.

Today we have various mail order choices. 

Once upon a time it was only Kodak.

Little did people know they were receiving 

future flea market items directly to their home. 

_____

Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

INSTANT FUN almost

 

Raise your hand if your first camera was a Kodak Instamatic. No, not necessarily the first camera you ever used, but the first camera that WAS yours. For me it was my trusty little Instamatic, as shown here in this ad from 1964. 

Click on image to see it larger.

I can still remember it in its black and yellow Kodak box. My folks bought it for me at the Navy Exchange. Up until then I'd used various Brownies that had belonged to my mom. But this one was all mine. Of course my folks bought the film and paid for the processing so I was very cautious with what I took shots of. But this little camera went on many vacations, photographed many friends, and even made it to a few rock concerts, where I managed to take really nice flash shots of the back of the head of the person in front of me.

I had one of the originals that required little flash bulbs, but my friend had one with a flash cube. I still have the mental image of her licking the bottom of that cube before putting it in place on the top of the camera. Not sure where she learned that trick. Not sure I remember licking the little flash bulbs mine used. Maybe it was just something she enjoyed doing. I do know we tried to push those little cameras far beyond what they were capable of doing. And she took some damned interesting shots by putting a faceted stone in front of the lens. The Mad Hatter at a Be-In was the one I remember the most.

Unfortunately my little camera doesn't look so great now. It's in a drawer, still in the leather case I had for it, but parts look rusted. And to my dismay I find that there is a roll of film still in it. That film has to date back to at least the 70s. I would love to see what's on it. Perhaps photos of my mom and dad that I would give anything to see. Most likely the film is simply too far gone to even show anything and I doubt I could find anyone to process it. I also have an unopened box of film for the little gem. All stuff to just put up on a shelf now for fond memories. That's what vernacular photographs are all about. Our memories and those of others. My camera is tattered but not lost.

Without KODAK...

Kodak has been there in the background for most of our lives. Sure you might have used a different brand camera, but if you were buying film you most likely bought Kodak. And if it wasn't for Kodak we wouldn't be collecting vernacular photographs. They made commonplace events a little more exciting. 

Here's a Kodak advertisement from the July 1918 The Delineator magazine. The copy reads:

The Kodak Album

All the little kings and queens of childhood's realm command your Kodak—command it to keep their picture story. Pictures of them and by them, pictures of their friends and their pranks—pictures that breathe the very joy and frankness of childhood. Such is the intimate picture story that makes the Kodak Album the most cherished book in all the house.

And picture taking is very simple now. Kodak has made it so.

Ask your dealer.

EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, Rochester, N.Y., The Kodak City

And now I scour the flea markets and estate sales for these albums, hoping to find moments from another person's life captured by Kodak. And it's always fun when I find a piece of Kodak ephemera. It just makes more sense to put it on this site than my ephemera site. It sort of helps to tie the madness of collecting together.

Click on image to see it larger.

KODAK ADVERTISEMENT 1937

A break from photos in my collection to look at an ad from Kodak in 1937. Without Kodak there simply wouldn't be so many wonderful vernacular / found photos to collect.

Interesting advertisement, especially taken out of its time period. The whole thing comes off a little creepy because of the headline and the heavily browed gentleman on the right. Okay, even the copy under him comes off a little creepy. I dug a little deeper and discovered he was actually a very popular author named Irvin S. Cobb. It's unfortunate it looks like a mug shot.

To see even more Kodak advertisements check out this gentleman's Flickr site. He has posted hundreds of wonderful old ads. Normally I would have posted this at my ephemera site, but I think this adds to the enjoyment of vernacular photography. 

Click on the image to see it larger at Flickr.