A Summer Workshop and my Yashica Electro 35 G

In my previous post, I mentioned I teach Advanced Placement (AP) Drawing and 2-Dimensional Design. Over the summer, I attended the AP Summer Institute (APSI) at the University of Texas at Arlington to renew my AP certification. This is a requirement to teach AP that I attend, every 4 years. The APSI is a 30-hour, 4-day immersive workshop that covers updates to testing, instructional strategies and hands-on portfolio making. AP Art teachers essentially learn by going through the process of making art for a portfolio and writing an artist’s statement. It’s intensive, but fun.

I enjoy going to the APSI for several reasons. I loved art school, and I sometimes miss being a student. At the APSI I get to be a student, and not a teacher, for a week. I love learning new things, and I especially love learning new things in my content area. I think being a good teacher is being a good student of what you teach.

It also reinvigorates teaching studio art for me. The college is a great host too, and there are catered lunches and a generous amount of snacks. Who doesn’t love snacks?

But perhaps the best part, for me, is being on a college campus in the summer. It’s a full sensory experience. I’m back in a learning environment, and I get that “first day of school” feeling… that excitement and anticipation of learning something. Old college buildings have a familiar smell, like a library. College campuses during the summers are quiet because students go home for the summer. I like having the place to myself. Quiet, open spaces give me pause for reflection and observation.

This year I decided to take the advice of many photographers and “always have a camera on me.” I chose my Yashica Electro 35 G, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400. I’ve had this camera for 2 years but haven’t really bonded with it like I have my Spotmatic and K1000. I settled on the Yashica because non-serviced ones are so cheap. I imagine it is because 8 million of them were made over a twenty-year timeframe, and there’s an unknown variable called the “Pad of Death”. If you don’t know what that is, the simplest explanation is it is a rubber pad that deteriorates with time and age that will cause the film advance and shutter cocking to lock up on these cameras.

I don’t consider it a design flaw, but I do think it defines the used market for these cameras. So, getting back to mine, I picked up an Electro 35 G, the second generation of this camera, for only $7 USD, in immaculate condition. A battery had leaked a little in the battery compartment, but aside from that, it looked brand new. I found a guy that specialized in Electro 35 CLA and repair on Etsy named Mark Davis. Mark is semi-retired now from camera repair but gave me permission to mention his name. I sent it off to him and got it back 2 months later in perfect working order… literally a brand-new camera!

I’ve been slow to use this camera extensively like I do my other 2 Pentax SLRs though. It’s different for sure. I have a hard time seeing if I am in focus, and focusing can be a bit tricky. Two things I love about it are the bright viewfinder screen, and how quiet the shudder is. It’s so quiet I can’t tell if it fired half the time. A quirk of this camera is the ratchet sound and loud “thunk” when advancing the film and cocking the shutter. After a while though, it’s an endearing quirk.

The pictures I am sharing from my week at UTA are some of my favorite ones I’ve taken since going fully analog. After developing and scanning I was pleasantly surprised by them, and I finally had a bonding experience with the Yashica. I’m sharing some of my favorite photos from my walks to and from lunch. I think they capture the feeling I got from being on campus during my college days. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy.

All of these were shot on Kodak Tri-X 400, exposed at box speed and metered with the Yashica. I developed them in Kodak D-76 stock solution and Ilford stop bath and fixer and scanned with an Epson V600. No adjustments were made and I retouched a few artifacts on the negatives.

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