Barnes School's Bellows-Box Camera

Regarding the photo technique of making something look like a small replica of itself ... here is a picture of the type of camera that is used ... a bellows-box camera.

The lens and film plane are at independently positionable ends of the blue bellows. They can be tipped side to side and up to down as well as translated in all three axes. The only constraint is that they cannot be rotated with regards to each other along the optical axis. With a piece of ground glass in the film holder and a black cloth thrown over the photographer's head as he looks at it, the exact choice of what is in focus and what isn't can be made. Parallax can be eliminated or exaggerated. These are features that modern just cameras cannot have.

This instrument is at the Barnes School in Montgomery. It was used to produce year books, pictures of sporting teams, portraits, class honors photos, etc. They developed the pictures in the chemistry lab (a converted serving kitchen on the second floor). It appears to have a film plane that took 8 by 10 inch glass plates. No wonder old photos have such exquisite detail. With a negative that big you might have image resolution the equivalent of a 500 mega-pixel digital camera.

I have lots of pictures of our Barnes School tour (note George and Mom in background) and will share them with you guys some day.