5 Frames in Waco, Texas with a Pentax K1000

I spent several years after my PhD working for Baylor University in Waco, Texas; First as a post-doc and then as a lecturer at the Physics Department. Waco is a mid-sized but quaint town with many old historic buildings and tall, beautiful trees. During my time there, a photographer friend recommended that I give Pentax K1000 a try. I had lost my trusty Canon A1 on a trip to Scotland and had not done any photography for a while. I didn’t fancy using the huge DSLRs that my photographer friends were carrying around.

So, Cliff, my photographer friend from Common Grounds — the coffee shop I used to call my second home — sold me his old Pentax K1000 for 50 bucks. This was in 2006, and I really enjoyed my Pentax K1000 until I left it on a connecting flight coming back from Los Angeles in 2009 (… seems to be a theme for me but I have gotten much better at not losing my cameras since then). I loved taking photos of the cats around the old 100-year-old house I lived in and of my friends at the coffee shop.

The first photo is of my friend Kate working on the stage (used for music shows) at the back of Common Grounds. I forget the exact film stock I used but I remember it was Kodak. I loved how she popped against the wooden fence in the back. There are some spots due to the dust during the scanning, but I don’t mind such imperfections when it comes to film.

The second photo is of my friend Artyom who was doing his PhD on the Armenian Genocide. Art introduced me to the works of Atom Egoyan and gifted me an awesome book of essays on literature by Vladimir Nabokov. Art, Kate and I would talk about literature, film and other stuff for hours at end.

The next photo is of Cassie — a student at Baylor and a barista at Common Grounds. She was also my Spanish teacher. This photo was taken on the “smoking” patio (such things have disappeared since then) while she was doing schoolwork with some of her friends during a break. There wasn’t a whole lot of a light in that section, but I love the contrasty look of the photo.

The next two photos of are of my friend Carissa whom I also met at Common Grounds. But these photos were taken at Cameron Park, which is the largest city park in the US after Central Park of NYC. Cameron Park is one of the gems of region. I would often go for a drive through the park in my old beat-up Honda Civic that I had bought for 200 dollars.

Carissa had studied how to make pastries in Paris, but I met her she was studying something related to outdoor stuff at Baylor. She had her cute puppy with us when these photos were taking. I didn’t quite nail the focus in the first photo, but I still love it. I love the dreaminess of both photos.

I loved the clean and uncluttered viewfinder of the Pentax K1000. Cliff had taught me Sunny Sixteen, but I mostly relied on the simple light meter that came with the camera. The 50 mm lens that came with it had a dreaminess which I loved. Taking photos with that camera was pure pleasure. That’s how I love doing photography. I have tried digital cameras since then but it’s never the same.

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