Posted 8 years ago
sjberry1
(5 items)
I've had this mystery box for a number of years. It was among my father-in-law's belongings and my wife has no idea why he had it. My guess has always been that it had something to do with photo developement, but I haven't been able to find an identical item when searching online. Since finding this wonderful site, I'm hopeful that someone will be able to identify it's purpose. Thank you all!
That's going to develop considerable heat too.
Looks like it was used for contact printing proofs from large format negatives.
This is a contact printing frame for the Printing Out Process (P.O.P.) that uses special printing-out-paper. The two white bulbs look like they are slightly different. The intent is to control the amount of contrast because negatives need to be 'dense; (i.e. U.V. wavelengths increase contrast). The frosted glass is used to increase the amount of image contrast. The red bulb and hinged lid is for inspecting the image has it 'prints-out' on the paper; but you must be careful to avoid fogging the image. It is an interesting process that can produce beautiful pictures.