The picture worth a thousand words.

In 2017 I acquired an obscure prototype Akeley motion picture movement. The piece was unusual in that it was mounted on a rectangular frame and contained the same movement used in the famous round Akeley “Pancake” camera. The prototype was stamped with the number “3” and was geared to expose only one frame per crank of the handle.

Akeley Junior Prototype Movement #3

I spent years researching the prototype, but came up empty until nearly three years later when an unusual Akeley 35mm motion picture camera showed up at an auction house in the US. It had the same style frame and movement mounted inside a rectangular aluminum body. This previously unknown camera and its traditional rectangular body was unusual from a manufacture famous for its revolutionary round camera design.

The camera is very basic, except for its advanced Akeley movement which was adapted to a traditional shutter mechanism. The lens mounts to a modified sliding dovetail plate from the Pancake and it uses the same iconic film magazine,.

The discovery of this new camera fueled my research. A few years later I met a collector of all things Carl Akeley in Boston. After a few weeks of sharing images from our respective collections he sent me an image of a signed original print hanging in his office with the note that the photograph ‘contains your Akeley Pancake camera’.

When I opened the image I was shocked to see not only the Akeley Pancake, but a new previously unknown Akeley camera under Martin Johnson’s arm.

The Safari Museum

The photograph led me to to the Safari Museum in Kansas to do some more research. According to Conrad Froehlich, Museum Director the image was taken during the Johnsons' 1924-1927 "Four Years in Paradise" Kenya expedition. They kindly provided a high resolution scan of a similar image taken during the same expedition.

George Eastman Museum Collection

These new discoveries led me back to the Eastman Museum, where I recalled an earlier entry in the collection for an Akeley with a name I didn’t recognize. At the time, no additional information or photographs were available other than the unusual entry for an “Akeley Junior”.

I wondered if the name “Junior” could be a reference to the same Akeley camera I found, so I reached out to the museum again and in early 2022 I received the response I was hoping for.

“We are currently in the process of cataloging our motion picture collection. Our cataloger should be working on this object soon and we will have images and information online within the next month.”

Within a few weeks I received another email from the Museum’s Technology Collections Manager with a few images which confirmed that the camera was indeed named the Akeley Junior.

The Akeley Junior came to the Eastman Museum around 1952 from the American Museum of Natural History. According to their records, the camera came to The American Museum of Natural History in 1935 from the the Martin Johnson African Expedition Corporation.

So here we are full circle…could the camera in the Johnsons’ expedition photograph be the camera sitting in the Eastman Museum today? We may never know for sure as not much else is currently known about the Akeley Junior Camera or if it was ever commercially produced.

The two examples known to exist could have been test models or prototypes as the Johnsons’ were close friends with Carl Akeley and used his earliest cameras on their expeditions.

Courtesy of the Eastman Museum.

The World’s Work

The same photograph was published in two articles, the first in the June, 1925 issue of “The World Today” and a year later in 1926 edition of “The World’s Work, Vol LII” which included an article featuring the Johnsons’ expedition to Africa entitled ‘Hunting Lions with a Flashlight’.

MR. AND MRS. JOHNSON AND THEIR MOVING PICTURE CAMERAS

This photograph is reproduced from an earlier installment for the purpose of showing some of the cameras used by the Johnsons.

The Akeley Professional and the Akeley Junior are the names of the machines, which were developed by Carl Akeley, another great African explorer, scientist, and artist.

For more information about Carl Akeley and his amazing inventions, check out my earlier blog post about the Akeley Pancake Motion Picture Camera.