Black Captain Kodak A Camera Story

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-98826-300-1
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 165 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Captain Kodak: A Camera Story is a children's book written by Alexander Black and published in 1899. The story follows a young boy named Harry Hastings who is passionate about photography and dreams of becoming a great photographer like his hero, Captain Kodak. After receiving a camera as a gift from his uncle, Harry sets out on a series of adventures with his friends, using his camera to document their journeys and capture the beauty of the world around them. Along the way, Harry learns valuable lessons about perseverance, creativity, and the power of imagination. As Harry's photography skills grow, he becomes increasingly determined to enter a photography contest and win the grand prize: a trip to Europe with Captain Kodak himself. With the help of his friends and his trusty camera, Harry embarks on a journey full of excitement and discovery, and ultimately learns that the most important thing is not the destination, but the journey itself. Captain Kodak: A Camera Story is a charming and engaging tale that celebrates the joy of creativity and the power of imagination. Through Harry's adventures, young readers are inspired to pursue their own passions and to never give up on their dreams, no matter how challenging they may seem. The book also serves as a reminder of the magic of photography and its ability to capture the beauty of the world around us.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Black, Alexander

Leseproben

I.
 
THE COMING OF THE CAMERA.
ON the day when the circus came to Hazenfield; one of the elephants broke loose and strolled up Main Street; and when they chased him he knocked down three lamp-posts, the stone boy on the drinking-fountain, upset a trolley car, broke the insurance company’s sign, smashed the helmet of Policeman Ryan, and fell into a hole in front of the barber’s. There never had been so much excitement in Hazenfield, and the motorman, Policeman Ryan, and the barber hope there never will be again. When it was all over, that is to say, when they got the elephant out of the hole, which you must know was no easy matter, and Hazenfield had quieted down again, there were many comments on the incident. “I never expected an elephant,” said the motorman. “I’m glad it wasn’t your head,” said Policeman Ryan’s wife, when she saw the helmet. “I thought he was coming in to get shaved!” said the barber. Allan Hartel, the Doctor’s son, said, “If I’d only had a camera!” Allan recalled how Main Street cleared, or tried to clear, when the elephant was first discovered; and the way the elephant swung his trunk, and dropped into a hobbling trot before he struck the trolley car. He recalled the frantic movement of the motorman as he caught sight of the big, lumbering beast at the corner. “If I’d only had a camera!” He recalled the brave way that Policeman Ryan stepped out into the street, waving his club, and the way he dodged when the elephant swung at him with his trunk. “If I’d only had a camera!” He recalled the way the elephant dropped on his knees in the hole. He recalled the funny wrinkling of the elephant’s hind legs as if he had on a pair of trousers that were too large for him. “If I’d only had a camera!” I suppose that the way he felt about this elephant affair had a good deal to do with the fact that after that Allan always liked so much to photograph elephants. But I must not get ahead of my story. To properly go on with the story I must tell you that about six weeks after the elephant got himself in a hole, and the circus people, with derrick and tackle, got him out again (you never saw an elephant more truly ashamed of himself than that elephant), Little McConnell saw Allan Hartel come out of the express office with a package. Now you, reader, will guess at once that this was a camera, but McConnell had no suspicion of this fact. “Hello!” called McConnell, “what have you got there?” McConnell was thirteen, two years younger than Allan. He was called Little McConnell to distinguish him from his brother, who was called Big McConnell. It would be hard to say why no one ever called him Percy—his first name. Even Allan always called him simply McConnell. He was the kind of boy, somehow, that you always call by his last name and never know why. McConnell and Allan had been chums for a long time, and McConnell certainly should have known what was in the bundle had he not been up to Greenby visiting his aunt for two weeks, and had not Allan kept a certain little enterprise a secret from everybody before that. But when Allan said, “Guess,” he was much puzzled for a moment. Then he made the most successful guess he ever had made in his life. “Not a camera?” he exclaimed. “Yes,” admitted Allan. “When did you buy it?” McConnell felt as if he must have been left out of Allan’s confidence somehow. “I didn’t buy it,” Allan replied. “Then who gave it to you—your father?” “It wasn’t given to me,” returned Allan. “Well,” said McConnell, a little annoyed, “that is just a trick. You’d have to buy it or have it given to you—wouldn’t you?” “No,” said Allan; “there’s another way.” “Oh, yes—you could find it.” “Then there is still another way,” Allan insisted. “You don’t mean to steal it, do you?” “No,” said Allan; “there is one other way.” “I give it up,” said McConnell. “That conundrum beats me,” and he went over the thing on his fingers: “buy it, have it given to you, find it, steal it,—what else is there?” “Win it,” said Allan. McConnell laughed. “Cheney says ‘win’ when he means steal.” “I can’t help that,” insisted Allan; “I did win it.” “How? What was the game?” “It wasn’t a game. I wrote a composition. There were a lot of prizes. One of them was a camera.” “You always were lucky,” said McConnell. Then to show that he wasn’t envious, he added: “I’m glad you did win it. I was thinking the other day that everybody seemed to have a camera except us. Is it a ‘press the button’?” “It’s both. You can press the button or stand it on legs, either one. It hasn’t any legs, now. They come separately. I don’t believe I’ll care much for them. I can rest it on something.” “Yes,” McConnell assented; “when they’re on legs they sometimes get broken when some one kicks against one of the legs. Let’s see, what is it they call the legs?” “Do you mean tripod?” “Yes, that’s it, tripod. I wonder why it isn’t triped,” mused McConnell, as they continued their walk toward Allan’s house. “We say biped and quadruped for two legs and four legs.” “McConnell and Allan had been chums for a long time.” Allan could not explain; and he was thinking about the camera. “Don’t you want to help me fix up a dark-room out in the stable?” “That’s just what I do want,” exclaimed McConnell. “I want to learn the ropes. You see, I think that when Bill hears about your having a camera he’ll help me to get one somehow. It seems to me,” McConnell continued enthusiastically, “I’d almost swap my wheel for one!” Allan was thinking about the dark-room. “Jo Bassett has his in the kitchen. I mean he develops there at night, and Owen has his in the attic. I wanted father to let me have the little place by his office, you know, where all the bottles are, but he said, No, sir! I’d have to doctor my plates where he wasn’t doctoring his patients, for he didn’t want either the plates or the patients to get the wrong doses.” The boys laughed. “Is the stuff dangerous that they put on the plates?” asked McConnell. “I guess not,” answered Allan, “unless you drink it. Father says there are two sides to a person, the inside and the outside, and he says we mustn’t use things on the wrong side. He’s going to help me about the bottles.” “But you must take the pictures first,” said McConnell. He was impatient to see the camera, and to have it aimed at something. “Couldn’t we—couldn’t you take something to-day?” “It’s too late now,” said Allan, regretfully. “We need a lot of light, and there’s scarcely any left. But we’ll get everything ready, so far as we can, for to-morrow.” When they reached Allan’s house the Doctor was just getting into his carriage at the door. “Hello!” he called; “so it has come, Allan?” “Yes, sir,” and Allan swung his package in the air. “Good!” exclaimed the Doctor. “I shall want to see it when I get back.” The boys made short work of the bundle when they reached indoors. Wrapped in strong paper and nestling in “excelsior” was the shiny, leather-covered box, with holes, and buttons, and levers, and gauges,—a mysterious box, which the boys proceeded to examine from its six sides with great reverence. With the aid of the printed instructions, and what knowledge the boys had acquired from seeing other Hazenfield cameras (especially Owen Kent’s), the mysteries began one by one to seem less mysterious. It was great fun to watch the images of the room, of the window, of the street, in the little “finder.” “Isn’t the picture going to be any bigger than that?” asked McConnell, in a disappointed tone. “Oh, yes,” said Allan; “that is only to show where the picture will come on the plate back here. It’s only a miniature of the real picture.” “And it isn’t upside down, either,” remarked McConnell, peering into the little opening at the top of the box. “Somebody told me,” said Allan, “that was because there was a little piece of looking-glass on the inside that twisted the thing around.” Presently they found that by opening a lid and looking through the box from the back the real image from the lens fell on the “focussing glass,” this time upside down. McConnell laughed. “That always seems so funny.” He twisted his head in an effort to get a natural view of the room on the glass. Then he ran across the room and stood on his head against the wall. “Do I look right side up now?” he demanded of Allan. “Yes,” laughed Allan, peering into the box. “You look right side up, but you don’t look very natural.” “‘Do I look right side up now?’” “Suppose you turned the camera upside down,” suggested McConnell, coming back. Allan laughed again. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any good,” and he turned the camera to show McConnell that the picture was still hopelessly inverted. McConnell thought that he liked the “finder” picture better. “It’s too bad,” he said, “that it isn’t bigger.” Allan had been reading about cameras. “There are special cameras,” he said, “that have finders on top as...