Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County, Texas
Life in Cameron Captured Through a Camera Lens
by Jeanne Williams
Temple Daily Telegram - October 3, 2011
CAMERON - Photographers of today might shudder to think about camera technology of the
early 20th century. But in Charles Brady Sr.’s day, a top-of-the-line camera used flash
powder to light subjects.
Later, technology provided Brady with the favorite camera of his career, a trusty
Graphex Speed Graphic camera he bought in 1943 and still used until the day he retired
in April 1977.
Today, Brady’s fleet of cameras, devices for mixing developing fluids and other curious
equipment - such as box cameras with upside-down images in the viewfinder - are
literally relics of history. Charles King, Milam County Historical Museum director,
believes these still-working artifacts are among the museum’s most popular exhibit.
Brady, a Williamson County native and Georgetown High School graduate, came to Cameron
in the 1920s looking for a town in which to open a photography studio.
In 1927, he and his partner, Chester Balke, opened B&B Studio in a rented building on
West First Street.
When Brady opened his Cameron studio in the mid-1920s, he said he preferred black and
white to color film, which he said would fade.
In 1947, he built a studio at 113 N. Central Ave., where his sons worked as
photographers. In a history written by family members, Brady said his greatest
pleasure was to photograph families on their happy occasions. He often said that
photographers worked with people when they were happy - at weddings, graduations,
family reunions and important events in their lives. Some of his favorite customers
were those that he began photographing during their childhood and followed through
graduation, weddings, grandchildren and great-grand-children.
Brady joked in a 1977 interview with the Temple Daily Telegram that he could have
melted his photo negatives into valuable silver when he closed his Cameron studio, but
he opted to donate his art to be preserved for future generations.
Tucked away in safety deposit boxes is the huge collection of rare negatives of
Cameron’s by-gone people, places and things, including an image of a horse-drawn fire
wagon. Brady donated the collection to the museum when he retired at age 74.
The museum also has every example of early 19th and 20th century photography, including
daguerreotypes, tintypes, salt-processed pictures and glassplate imagery - some dating
to the Civil War era, King said.
The most impressive exhibit in the photography display is a huge Nova stand camera on
wheels, equipped with a handcrank for height and a 241-millimeter lens, with plates so
large enlargements could be muralsized, King said. This camera was used by Brady’s
sons, Charles A. Brady Jr. and Edward Brady, during their tenure as B&B Studio camera
artisans.
“It was made in Mexico and used a large plate,” King said. “In today’s kind of thinking
this would be 25 to 30 megapixels, compared to aim-and-shoot cameras of today with
about 14 megapixels.”
This type of camera from the 1930s or ‘40s would yield very professional portraits one
could acquire at a pricey studio such as Neiman-Marcus, King said.
Included in the prestigious Brady exhibit are his likeness, a black-and-white studio
portrait, a 1950s-era home movie camera and a photo of the old Milam County Jail that
museum personnel took using his Graphex Speed Graphic camera.
jwilliams@tdtnews.com
All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Photos by Jeanne Williams - Temple Daily Telegram
Milam County Historical Museum Director Charles King shows Brady's favorite camera and a photo of the old County Jail taken by volunteers using Brady's camera.
The Bradys' vintage stand camera is on display in the Museum
.