The next Monday, we follow Jessie down to the museum for a special presentation. We pretend to be museum visitors, looking at ancient hair combs and toilet brushes while we wait for Professor Wong to arrive.
Soon, a large crowd gathers in the photography section, and we stand at the back to listen in. Professor Wong makes her way through the crowd and switches on a special machine that beams our photo onto a screen on the wall.
The crowd gasps and applauds - most of them have never seen anything like it! When the noise dies down, Professor Wong gives a speech about the building in the photo and Jessie’s discovery of the old film.
Jessie looks over and gives us a small salute. She hates taking credit for our work. One day we’ll get the credit we deserve, but for now I’m happy for Jessie to take the glory - as long as we still have a wooden box to sleep in tonight!
Sleuth Truth: Film Photography
Today, most people take photos using digital cameras. Digital photography is quick and easy, and we can see our photos as soon as we take them. Until the late 1990s, however, most photographs were taken with film cameras. The film in this type of camera could only capture a limited number of images. When the film was full of images, it had to be given to a professional to develop and print the photos on paper. Most of the time, people didn’t know if they’d taken good photos until they collected their prints later on!
The first photo films captured images in black and white. Films that captured colour images weren’t widely used until the 1960s, but they became popular very quickly.
Photographic film is very sensitive to light. When you take a photo with a film camera, the front part of the camera briefly lets the light in, and the light makes an image on the film. The film needs to be treated with special chemicals to make the image stay on the film permanently. Like the film in the story, the colours on the film are the opposite of their real colours.
A machine called an enlarger is used to shine light through the film, to project the image onto special paper. The paper is then treated with special chemicals. These make the image appear on the paper in the correct colours, and prevent it from fading away.