Kodak Brownie Bullet Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

For week 11 of my 2016 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks project, I dusted off the Kodak Brownie Bullet 127 film camera that's been in my collection for a while. I don't recall where I got this camera, but I believe it was acquired during the time that I was going to focus my collection on Kodak Brownie cameras (not likely now as I've gone in too many directions with my collection). The Brownie Bullet is almost identical to the Brownie Holiday Flash, made between 1953-1962, and was used as premium giveaway during the late 1950's to mid 1960's. It is a bakelite camera designed by Arthur H. Crapsey that produces 8 photographs on a roll of 127 film.

I loaded the camera with the only currently available film, Rera Pan 100 that I purchased from Freestyle Photographic Supply. The weather this week has been warm and sunny, so it was a perfect opportunity to get out at lunch break and take a walk around Baltimore with the Brownie Bullet in my camera bag. In my experience, Rera Pan 100 works best in bright sunny conditions. I usually process it with Kodak D-76, but not having any mixed up, I tried it with my usual Caffenol concoction.  I don't fuss too much with the developing temp, only using water that I've stored at room temperature, and using the same steps that I found on the Photojojo website a couple of years ago. I mix up the super washing soda, instant coffee and vitamin C in the same combination every time, develop for 8 minutes, use water for stop, fix for 5 minutes and rinse, with a final wash of generic Photoflo. I haven't experimented too much as I've been pretty happy with how the Caffenol has been working so far. I scanned the negatives using a 3D printed 127 film adapter that I bought from ebay on my Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner.

Enchanted Forest through a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Camera

This past Saturday, my friend Elaine and I attended the 60th Birthday Celebration of Enchanted Forest at Clark's Elioak Farm in Howard County, Maryland. The farm is geared toward young children with activities such as a petting zoo, pony rides, and hay rides. I was only mildly disappointed that I was over the weight limit to ride the ponies, but the goats in the petting zoo were amusing and just way too cute. The main reason I was there was to see the restored nursery rhyme structures from the long closed Enchanted Forest Theme Park. I have a too distant but fond memory of going to the Enchanted Forest in Ellicott City on my very first field trip in elementary school way back in first grade. I have vague memories of that trip with the more vivid ones being of the giant slide on an island and my visit to the souvenir shop to buy a giant pair of Enchanted Forest sunglasses. My friend and I enjoyed looking at the brightly painted structures throughout the farm, but it was really hot outside! I brought along my Pentax Q10 mirrorless camera and my modified Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash box camera with a flipped lens. The modification is done by removing the film carrier inside the camera and popping out the lens and putting it in backwards. This creates photos that have blurred edges with a sharp center with a somewhat dreamy effect. I thought this would be perfect for the brightly colored nursery rhyme characters and buildings that have been restored. I developed the photos with the Unicolor C-41 kit from the Film Photography Project Store and the resulting images are above.