Year: 2013
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Found Film Friday: Bill
Found Film Friday is when we look at a roll of film that someone took long ago, and forgot to get processed/developed, and years later it ended up in my possession so that I could rescue the photos from oblivion. Over the last two weeks we have gotten to know Bill. Two weeks ago, I…
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Christmas Photowalk
This Christmas, several of us got things like lenses and other camera-related items in our stockings. So it was quite natural that we decided to take a “family photowalk” on Christmas Day, especially given that we are living in a foreign country, far from the close friends and family we might ordinarily be visiting over…
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Hanging Around in Hyderabad (Post #3)
For my third and final post on our trip to Hyderabad, I’m sharing a roll of Tri-X 400 film (black and white) I shot with my Ricoh Super Kr-5 II, a camera that’s barely vintage, having been manufactured in the mid-1990s. And, amazingly, for a roll of 36 photos, every single shot came out in…
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Hanging Around in Hyderabad (2nd Post)
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a week working in Hyderabad, a city of 7 or so million in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (which is in the process of splitting into two states – but that is another story). During my work week, I had little to no time…
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Found Film Friday: Bill’s Party
Last week I posted the first of three rolls that were shipped to me as a set, ultimately from Rhode Island – and we don’t know much else about them. They were all 120 film, but of different types. This second roll was marked “Bill’s Part”…and after developing them, I realized it was supposed to…
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The Argus Seventy-Five: Great Photos for a So-Called “Toy” Camera
The Argus 75, also marketed as the Argus Seventy-Five and the Argoflex Seventy-Five*, is a bakelite pseudo TLR made by the Argus company between 1949 and 1964. Â It’s a simple, inexpensive, yet reliable little box camera that you would hang around your neck, look down into the large, clear viewfinder, and snap photos at waist…
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Hanging Around in Hyderabad
I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time in Hyderabad, India’s fourth-largest city. Â It has some very interesting and historically significant buildings and monuments, centuries-old bazaars, and the ancient ruins of an old fort – as well as friendly and interesting people. Â Here are some of my initial impressions – more to be…
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Shooting with the Kodak Retina 1a
I’m loving this little 1950s camera and the pictures it takes. There are lots of little imperfections here and there, maybe dust in the lens – who knows – but I love the vintage look of the photos I have been taking with it. A few weeks ago I took it out for a test…
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Found Film Friday: Bill Goes to a Wedding
So there’s this guy, “Bill”, who loved to take pictures…he lived somewhere around Rhode Island…and when he passed away, as is the case for many people, his things were packed up and sold for whatever his relatives could get for them. Â Among those things were many, many rolls of undeveloped film, some of which ended…
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Testing the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 521
The Ikonta A 521 is one of a series of compact and well-designed cameras the German Zeiss Ikon company produced from 1929 until the late 1950s, with a brief break during World War II, as the company was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in February of 1945. Â during the Cold War, the East German…
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Shooting with the Ansco Anscoflex
A couple of days ago, I posted about some “found film” that had come from a 1950s Ansco Anscoflex. Â I had originally bid on an unidentified roll of film on eBay, and when I found out that the seller was also offering the camera on which the roll had been found for sale, I bought…
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Found Film Friday: Holy Toledo! It’s an Ansco Anscoflex!
This week’s Found Film Friday is a fun find… This week’s film is a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan 620 film. Â I was the winning bidder on eBay, and asked the seller where the film had come from. Â He told me he was selling the camera separately, so I bought that as well. Â It’s an…
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Cross Processing 127 Film
When I first started playing around with vintage cameras, I wasn’t sure what kind of film to order, and just for fun, ordered a roll of Rollei Crossbird, without really knowing what it was. Â It turns out this is slide film – i.e. “positive” or “color reversal” film you would use for old-fashioned slides, rather…
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Ansco B2 Cadet: Photography with an Old Box Camera
Sure, today’s fancy digital cameras have a lot of tricks to ensure your photos turn out picture-perfect. Â But compared to the simplicity of an old box camera like Ansco’s B2 Cadet, the photos aren’t THAT much better! Basically a wooden box without any real lens, and a 1/60 second shutter that allows light into a…
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“Found Film Friday”: from Fort Wayne, Indiana
This blog bounces around a bit depending on what I’m interested in on a particular day of the week, so maybe I will post “found film” articles on Fridays from now on. Â There are a few folks out there doing “52 film cameras in 52 weeks”, which could be fun (I’d probably be up to…
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Photowalk in Georgetown (Chennai, India): the Flower Market
Third in a series of posts about a photowalk taken in northern Chennai, in a section of town called Georgetown. I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog that there are people – mainly older women – all over Chennai who make a living by stringing together flowers and selling them for about a dollar…
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Photowalk in Georgetown (Chennai, India): Poses
This is the second in a multi-part series about a recent photowalk in Georgetown, one of the most dense parts of Chennai, and virtually the only area to retain its colonial identifier. In a couple of days I hope to also post about the flower market, and the colorful photography opportunities it offered. But first…
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Photowalk: Odd Jobs in Georgetown (Chennai, India!)
This will be the first in a multi-post series on a Sunday morning photowalk in Georgetown – a part of Chennai, India. Â This part of the city , just inland from Chennai’s port, includes some of the city’s most crowded areas – notably Parry’s Corner – as well as a flower market with bulk flower…
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Photowalk: Chintadripet
Chintadripet is a community contained within a bow of the Cooum (or Kouvam) River in the center of Chennai. Though I have no idea what it means, the community was once called Chinna Thari pettai due to its history as a weaving community, eventually shortened to Chintadripet. Today it is home to “Richie Street”, where…
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Flashback: Vintage Kodak Commercials
If you’ve been wallowing in depression over the demise of Kodak, here are a few vintage films to cheer you up. First, there’s “America is Cameraland” – a 1960 infomercial (yes, they had those even then) that plays up the importance of capturing your lives in video and talks about all the great Kodak video…
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Sunday Photowalk through the ‘Hood
Monsoon season has come to Chennai, India.  According to the weather reports, it’s only raining in Chennai.  But it seems that all the rain which should have fallen elsewhere is also falling in Chennai.  So when I woke up this morning for the planned photowalk in town (with other photographers) and heard the pouring rain, I…
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Found Film: Singing Family
Here’s another “found film” set – one of a number of rolls of vintage film that have been discovered inside cameras, attics or elsewhere – that have made their way to me to be rescued from oblivion. Â This is the latest roll: This roll supposedly originated in South Carolina, but we have a clue that…
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Testing the Vest Pocket Kodak Model B
I love these little Vest Pocket Kodaks. Â They are about the size of a Blackberry (twice as thick) folded up. Â Kodak made these starting in 1912, and continued until 1926. Â They were revolutionary at the time. Â As the first camera to use 127 rollfilm, about 4 centimeters long and the thickness of a magic marker,…