May 15, 2004
#95 :: Flash bulb
"Flasbulbs popping" remained a cliché long after electronic strobes took over for these pearlescent, one-shot marvels. Snapping the shutter on a camera would close a circuit, allowing electricity from a battery to jolt a hair-fine cloud of zirconium wire into ignition in the pressurized oxygen barely contained in the bulb's glass capsule. Instant daylight - or a harsh approximation thereof. Once the bulb went off, a photographer - particularly a news shooter - would quickly pop the bulb out of its clip, usually to clatter on the street below, and shove another into the socket before the previous one quit bouncing. In the days when photojournalists relied upon the plate-format Speed Graphic, taking a string of photos meant popping and replacing the bulb, then sliding a dark-slide in to the film holder to cover the 4"x5" film sheet just exposed, pulling the filmholder out, flipping it over, sticking it back into the camera and pulling its darsklide to ready the next frame. Flashbulbs were what gave Weegee's photos their garish, hyper-real edge - the sudden explosion of light and flash of heat that revealed the rawest nature of humanity at its peak. This history gives more details on the lowly flashbulb's origins and evolution.