Our camera corner

Invergordon Museum holds a beautiful collection of plate cameras.
The plate cameras used a single piece of glass coated with light-sensitive chemicals, or, later, single pieces of film, each one taking one photo.
The earliest cameras were loaded in this single-shot manner - and had to be loaded in the dark. Later cameras could be loaded using a plate holder (a dark slide) - a box containing the plate which could be fitted into the camera, then the side of the slide facing the lens could be opened for the exposure, and closed for the slide's removal. This way, cameras could be loaded away from the darkroom, and photographers could carry slides for more than one exposure.

Ernest J Privett was a professional photographer in Invergordon from the early 1920s until the late 1940s. He was also the Burgh Surveyor. After he retired, his photographic equipment was kept in a shed in the garden of his home, Sunnyside Cottage, where it remained until it was given to the museum by his daughter.

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