22/03/2026
On Friday 20th March we had the pleasure of having Ken Best talking about the Kodak Vest pocket camera.
Ken Best’s talk on Kodak was as much a personal journey as it was a history lesson. It all began back in 1974 at the DDee Camera Club, when a friend handed him three old cameras — two ordinary ones and a Vest Pocket Kodak from 1922. That little camera sent him down “several rabbit holes,” uncovering a story far bigger than he expected.
Ken set the scene by describing the early days of photography, when cameras were heavy wooden boxes and photographers wrestled with wet glass plates. Into this world came George Eastman, born 12 July 1854. Eastman left school at 14, worked in insurance, and tinkered with photography in his spare time. Frustrated by the messy plate process, he began experimenting at home. By 1879 he had invented a machine to produce dry plates, and a few years later he perfected emulsion on celluloid, leading to his 1885 roll‑film patent.
In 1888 he launched the Kodak brand with the slogan that changed everything: “You press the button, we do the rest.” His aim was simple — make photography accessible to everyone. The Brownie camera, released in 1900 for just $1, did exactly that. Children could use it, families could afford it, and photography suddenly belonged to the public.
Ken traced how roll film shaped the world: cinema, X‑ray imaging, and even aerial reconnaissance in WWI. Eastman became a visionary on the scale of today’s tech giants, yet remained a generous philanthropist.
The star of Ken’s research, though, was the Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) — a tiny folding camera released in 1912. It used 127 film, a format still celebrated today by the World 127 Club, whose special shooting day, 12/7, coincidentally falls on Eastman’s birthday. The VPK became known as the “Soldier’s Camera,” carried by officers in WWI, by Frank Hurley on Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition, and by Mallory and Irvine on Everest in 1924.
To bring history to life, Ken loaded the 1922 VPK with film — £18 for the roll, £12 to develop — and with only eight exposures, he carefully recreated local scenes such as Bangor Castle, Ulster Bank, and Coates Memorial. He compared each shot with a modern digital version, revealing both the charm and the challenges of early photography: fiddly film loading, tiny viewfinders, and the constant risk of light leaks.
Ken finished by showing how the VPK evolved into the Model B, a more refined but still characterful camera. His talk was a reminder that photography’s past is full of ingenuity, adventure, and human stories — all sparked, in his case, by a gifted camera and a curious mind.
Leanne Simpson
information officer
BNDCC