Blog Post # 1: Lets Begin

My fascination for cameras started near birth. My father worked for a camera store called Inkley’s Photography. He worked in a number of different store locations, but started his photographic journey before that right out of high school.

I have a picture of myself sitting next to a very large Kodak Instamatic 100 on a fireplace hearth. The camera was a window display at Inkley’s. This camera was introduced in 1962 and will be featured in a future issue of Dr. Frankenfilm, but it was this camera and picture that put cameras and film photography in my DNA.

Brownie Playground

For over 60 years I have had some type of camera in my hand. In my early years I was hanging out  with my father at sporting events, car race tracks, or just out shooting film. I have a picture of me taking a picture of someone as a photographer with an old box Brownie. No one can seem to remember who took it. I learned early that it was good to always have a camera in hand. It was my father who told me the best camera in the world is the one in your hand.

I remember being in a darkroom way before I could reach the countertop. My father would go to a football game or basketball game, and I was sitting in the seats or loosely following him up and down the court or field.  At the race car track, I was in the stands wishing to be in the infield. At an early junior high school age I wanted to be in the pits, but there were too many restrictions and legalities.

I was at the darkroom whenever I could get to it and learning the ropes. The smell of the chemicals and film, the sound of the timer engaging and ticking, and the clank of glass bottles and plastic containers were mesmerizing and addicting to me. In my first year of junior high school, I wandered into the yearbook class and joined the yearbook staff. I had darkroom experience and was ready to keep company in the darkroom. My parents divorced when I was young and for a short time I was separated from my father’s cameras and darkroom adventures. Joining the junior high yearbook staff got me back involved and I could access a darkroom, cameras and film. We were on the poor side and I didn’t have my own camera.

As these blogs continue I will tell tales of camera adventures and disasters. I hope others see through my eyes and words that there is a very creative life in film photography. Most think that film photography is dead. Many would rather buy a digital camera and bypass the development, the darkroom, the chemicals and equipment all together and avoid the 60s and 70s.  I, however, love the smell, the sounds, the creativity, the adventures and experiments of film photography. In the future I will tell the tale of film rescues, and finding old lost rolls.

For a short time in the 90s I was slowly turning to digital photography. It seemed that film was dying a slow death and I should be headed to new technology and purchasing a whole new operation. I bought a digital Canon EOS Rebel at a pawn shop and got to work. I even sold (liquidated) most of my film gear. I was sure that film would disappear.

But I couldn’t get the bug in the digital world. I was raised in film and loved the feeling, the complications, and the technique of setting the controls and experiencing the triangle of light for myself. Those who grew up on film can appreciate setting apertures, the film speeds, the shutter speed and the Sunny-16 rule all in your head in a moment’s notice. It becomes second nature.

I would hate to try and guess all the cameras I have owned. Today my camera ownership is around 65. I have them categorized and listed on a spreadsheet. The name, Year of Manufacture, film format, cost to me, where I can find my negatives from that camera and how it has handled so far. I like to run more then one roll through the camera to get an idea of the quality of the camera. All too often the first roll has mistakes and errors. I also develop my own film, and some days are better then others. Sometimes my chemicals are tired, some days the chemical is hot and new. Other days I forget what I’m doing and develop a roll of black and white in color chemicals – it happens. But I try to catalog and become familiar with the camera and what it can do for me. These cameras are  actually tools. Like a paint brush that can paint wide strokes, or a brush that does petite strokes, or  the types of hair of the bristles, each camera produces a different type and quality of picture. The film is the paint; slow, fast, colored, black and white, grainy or smooth.

Childhood Cameras

What camera is my daily driver? Which camera have I put back on the shelf and not picked back up? Which one have I done the most repairs on? How many different cameras have I used? Do I have a favorite? And what’s my future look like in photography?  I want to explore these questions and help students and friends become more familiar with the tools that are out there. You can build a house with the new machinery, levelers, equipment and technical tools. But humans have been building houses for thousands of years without todays modern technology. People are still building houses with 100 year tools because they still work. Returning to the art of photography in film is revisiting and rescuing that skill so it doesn’t disappear from your toolbox.