On June 30th we posted the "Befriend a Forgotten Camera" challenge. The idea is to find, buy, or borrow a funky old forgotten camera and run a roll of film through it sometime during the summer, and show us a sample picture. (Doesn't have to be "good.")
NOTE: Some very early entrants are posted below. More recent ones will be published individually on the main blog page, as that seems like it's going to be a little easier for me to keep up with! —Mike
RULES
1. Anybody can play.
2. Points for using the oldest, funkiest forgotten camera you own or can find. (Funky or old digital cameras are permissible if that's what you want to do.)
3. Shoot as much or as little with your forgotten camera as you want to.
4. If you don't have a film scanner, get prints made locally and scan a print. If you don't have a flatbed scanner, make a copy picture with your digital camera.
5. Limit the Photoshopping.
6. Send 2 pictures: a picture of the old camera and a picture you took with the camera. I also need your name, the name of the camera, and where you live.
7. Submit 800-pixel-wide JPEGs at any time between now and the first Tuesday in September by clicking on the "Email Me" link in the right-hand column. Use "Forgotten Camera" as the subject line. Note: It's VERY IMPORTANT that you use this subject line. If you don't, I will lose your email. And if I lose your email because of this, please don't complain!
8. One entry per person. Well, unless you have a second entry you really, really think is cool.SUMMARY OF YOUR ENTRY:
•Did you include your name?
•Did you say where you live?
•Did you identify the old camera you used?
•Did you include both pictures?
•Does your subject line read "Forgotten Cameras"?I'm not good at staying organized, so please help me out.
-I'm not
(All captions by the photographers)
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Bill Desmond
Waukesha, Wisconsin
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Here's a photo of my mother-in-law, Alyce Quasius, age 89, taken at the cottage on Pigeon Lake in Manitowoc County that she and her husband built 50 years ago. I used my old Olympus XA and Fuji Superia 800, shot at ƒ/5.6 (the shutter speed indicator no longer works so I don't know that). I had it developed for $1.99 and scanned for $.99 at the Target here in Waukesha.
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Chad Thompson
I love this camera. It's light, comfortable to carry and shoots 6x6 or 6x9. And the best thing is that it keeps me on my toes with my metric to English conversion. So when to US finally goes metric (like I was told in the second grade we would) I'll be ready.
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Ross Chambers
Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
Hidden corner of Botanic Gardens Sydney city, Australia with unexplained contents (perhaps a down-under Atget?)
Voigtlander Prominent—much maligned for its "left-eyed" design—but
good for those with lousy right eyes, like me. Born in the 1950s and
going strong!
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João de Medeiros
Oporto, Portugal
This one was taken using an old Kodak pocket camera, the No. 1A Series II by Eastman Kodak. In my second year in college, bachelor degree in photography, I used this camera as my main one. I adapted it to 120 and used Fuji's color films like Velvia to express some creative visions. The camera has a little orange hole to let the user know where he stands, but using the 120 film there is no number for a 6x11 negative, only 645, 6x6, 6x7 and 6x9. So I disregarded the frame size and usually I shot the entire 120 roll like a continuous frame. I calculated the spots where the dark and bright areas would be in the composition to introduce new exposures, trying to 'paint' it in a creative way...anyway this was back in 2003, and in a final exhibition, there were lots of people who thought that maybe I was experimenting with digital...certainly I exposed the negatives and the camera along with the prints. I hope you enjoy it!
