Recently I was looking for an image to illustrate a post and came across a picture of something I haven’t seen or even thought about in more than 50 years — my first camera. My, how things have changed.

This is a Kodak Brownie, circa 1950. That’s about when I had mine, give or take a year or two, yet I remember this little camera like it was only yesterday. Perhaps it’s just because I was so fascinated by what it could do.

These days film cameras are rapidly becoming antiques. Everyone is going digital. And why not? There’s no film to load or process. Mistakes are easily corrected and photos easily manipulated. It’s done so often that we’ve learned to be skeptical about the accuracy of images in the news or online. And rightly so. “Photographic evidence” no longer proves anything. As long ago as the Civil War, images were being doctored. You can see those and many other famous doctored or faked photos in this Denver Post photo gallery.