Vest Pocket Kodak camera makes junkyards look like World War I battlefields

Chances are, photographs from the First World War taken by Allied soldiers were shot using the Vest Pocket Kodak folding camera. Created by Kodak in 1912, along with a dedicated small-size roll film, the pocket-size VPK sold by the millions and was manufactured through 1935. If the Kodak Brownie was the Ford Model T of cameras, putting photography in the hands of the masses, the VPK was the little Model T Roadster.

Murilee Martin's Vest Pocket Kodak Model B camera

If you like old cars, you'll like old film cameras— and the cameras take up a lot less room. Photo by Murilee Martin

Naturally, I had to try out a VPK as a wrecking-yard camera, having previously gone down the rabbit hole of junkyard photography with cheap German and Soviet medium-format film cameras. I picked up a Vest Pocket Kodak Model B Autographic, a post-WW1 version that had slightly different controls but the same lens and shutter type.

35mm cartridge and 127 roll film

35mm cartridge on the left, 127 roll film on the right. Photo by Murilee Martin

127 roll film (on the right) is quite a bit wider than 35mm film (the lack of sprocket holes in 127 film means there's more usable area), but the image size of 1-5/8" by 2-1/2" is still much smaller than the 2-1/4" by 3-1/4" image size of the 120 cameras I had been taking to junkyards in recent months. You can still get new 127 film from Japan, though it isn't cheap; I develop the stuff myself so I'm not worried about getting it processed at a lab.

Vest Pocket Kodak Model B camera with cassette tape for scale

Much smaller than other folding cameras of the era, and not much bigger than a modern smartphone. Photo by Murilee Martin

Like the Ford Model T, the VPK is a masterpiece of cheap, compact design. Its small size made it useful for doughboys burdened with gas masks, weapons, and influenza in mud-filled trenches.

Paddock at Barber Motorsports Park

Light leaks! Photo by Murilee Martin

I picked up a few rolls of 15-year-expired Czech 127 film for cheap on eBay and took my Vest Pocket Kodak to the 'Shine Country Classic 24 Hours of Lemons race at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, to test the camera in challenging real-world conditions. The results weren't so great; tiny pinholes in the camera's leather bellows caused the problems in the image above. After the race, I fixed the light leaks with liquid electrical tape and folded up the VPK for a junkyard trip in Denver.

Chrysler Sebring photographed with Vest Pocket Kodak Model B camera

Those numbers and marks along the bottom of the image take away from the beauty of the Chrysler Sebring. Photo by Murilee Martin

The light-leak problem was mostly solved, and disassembly and cleaning of the lens/shutter assembly cleaned up the image quality, but the elderly film I'd used had a problem: the ink from the numbers printed on the backing paper bled through onto the film (note the "11" and black squares beneath the Sebring's bumper in the photo above). This sort of unexpected problem happens a lot with long-stored NOS car parts, too.

1973 Ford F-150 in Denver junkyard, photographed with VPK

The VPK's bellows still drop some dust onto the film, but the camera can capture decent shots of 1973 F-150s and other wrecking-yard denizens. Photo by Murilee Martin

Now the VPK is sorted out and shooting reliable junkyard shots. Next step: a Japanese 127-film twin-lens reflex camera.

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