[LRflex] Re: Why?
- From: Ted Grant <tedgrant@xxxxxxx>
- To: leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:00:45 -0800
WHY?
First let me apologize for being some what flippant in my first "WHY" post
using a recent published newspaper interview. Hey it was a nice interview.
:-)
I always wanted a camera as a kid, my dad let me look through his box
Brownie usually early morning before we went to Sunday School when we wore
our best clothes and he'd take a few snaps of the family all dressed up to
go to church.
When my wife Irene and I were married in Oct.49 and on my first birthday in
May 1950 she asked the simple question.... "what would you like for a BD
gift?" I responded some what joking.... "I've always wanted a camera."
Lo and behold she gave me a simple little plastic 35mm Argus A2 camera. It
was like first time a duck enters water..... man I couldn't believe it, nor
using it. :-) I shot everything that moved and the first few rolls shot
within hours were taken to the local drug store, some what like we see
today... "a 1 hour photo store" where they developed film and made 3X5
prints.
All for the huge amount of $2.00 per roll including prints. 36 prints. And
if any of the prints were out of focus due to negatives, you didn't pay for
the print! OK compare that to today !
However what I did find was, they didn't always print every negative for
whatever reason.
So a friend of mine offered to help me learn how to develop my film and make
prints, best part? He and his brother had made an enlarger from a diagram in
a "Mechanics Illustrated" magazine using an old box camera bellows/lens and
a very large clean soup can with a light source from a lamp in the top. And
he taught me the magic of enlarging!
I used Irene's baking tins for trays...... think about that for a moment?...
acidic acid and tin? The trays went black, the solutions a weird colour,
but the prints looked not bad. ;-) Not enough experience to realize how bad
they really looked! I on the other hand had to buy her new baking tins! ;-)
I mean are you going to argue with this beautiful girl you married and wake
up with every morning? :-) Any size baking tins she wanted I bought them, as
I was a "photographer!" Yeah right. ;-)
Early on, the "dark room" was the kitchen table after it got dark when there
wasn't any light from the outside. OK that worked during the winter months.
Spring and summer came along and I was booted out the door to the "sun
porch!" :-) Windows all round!True! :-)
So I took the heavy thick blankets off the bed and nailed them..... "another
bad photo move!" ;-) Over the windows in the sun porch so I could make
prints when it got dark. Summer time in Canada "dark doesn't happen until
very late evening." So even with the blankets during June until end of
August I couldn't work in the "dark room sun porch" until about 10.30 or
later at evening, many many late nights!:-(
And from there the rest is history as Irene became a "Photographer widow" as
I traveled about the country and the world being a photojournalist.
Today? WOW!!!!!! :-)
It's digital all the way in a light room! I've even considered...." Why not
set up computer & printer on the back deck so I can do my "work?" ;-) And
get a nice sun tan at the same time! Like, "WHY not?" ;-) The beginning of
a new "WHY?" series? ;-)
ted
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