Archive Film Shows Eccentric Brit Crafting a Handmade Large Format Camera

A fascinating archive video from the BBC about Gandolfi — a camera company that handmade traditional large format analog cameras well into the 20th century — was recently uploaded to YouTube.

Louis Gandolfi started the company in South London in 1888. It was carried on by his sons who continued to make the large format cameras with bellows long after they had been replaced with modern analog photo technology.

The BBC Archive video was filmed in 1974 and catches up with Fred Gandolfi, who gives the camera crew a tour of the workshop in London. Fred, who speaks in a thick old-school London accent, explains how he custom-makes cameras for customers.

“If I can’t see what the customer wants, I’m in a bit of a flutter,” he explains. “But it’s surprising that you can, by thinking around it, you can actually see the customer working with that object, and then that’s alright.”

The most complicated piece of the camera is the baseboard, which Fred prepares himself. Gandolfi made cameras in 5×4, 10×8, and all the way up to 15×12 inches. The video goes through how Fred makes the baseboards and the brass reinforcements using tools like the “old woman’s tooth” and a “holdfast.”

The brass reinforcements are particularly tricky as Fred has to cut a hole into the grain of the wood to fit the reinforcements. “It’s nearly all finger control, “Fred says. “As you push, you also push down on your chisel so you don’t get a sudden dig.”

Fred tells the BBC reporter that altogether there are 10 trades involved before the camera leaves the workshop, including the metal work, the lacquering, the wood machining, the bellow fitting, and the French polishing.

Even though the BBC film was shot over 50 years ago, large-format cameras with bellows were already archaic. Nevertheless, many different photographers in the 1970s still wanted to use Gandolfi cameras, including commercial and fashion photographers, archeologists, architects, forensic scientists, and landscape photographers. The cameras were even used by police for booking photos.

At the end of the video, Gandolfi points to one camera and says he will never use it to take photos. The reason? “It is to safeguard my self-confidence, for soon my fingers will fumble, and in my hands lie my life,” he says poetically.