I brought this fantastic bit of history home today. It's a street box camera, probably built by an itinerant photographer (or sometimes little specialty shops would cobble these together) in the very early 1900s. The history of street box cameras, not to mention how they're used today, is really incredible. Photographs are taken directly onto darkroom photo paper, producing a paper negative. Those paper negatives are developed inside the body of the camera (often with the photographer unable to see what they are doing). The paper negatives are then positioned in front of the camera and photographed, producing the final, positive image (again, after being developed inside the body of the camera).
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_box_camera
https://www.boxcameranow.com/en/a-little-bit-of-history/
https://www.boxcameranow.com/en/photographers/
https://www.afghanboxcamera.com/
I'll drop more photos (including the inside) in a comment.
#photography #antiquephotography #history #cameras #darkroom #antiquecameras #vintagephotography
