I picked up this camera cheap from an op shop because I wanted to slap the lens on my DSLR for that sweet vintage look. Needless to say I got curious and fell down the film rabbit hole. Since then I have picked up other film cameras, but this one is still my favourite.
This is a bit different from the usual #fullrollfriday because I shot this roll of film, had no idea what to do with it, and ended up using it to make a video. Let’s start with that, then I’ll explain how it came about. (The video runs for four minutes)
Back in the 90s I used to shoot “Melbourne City Scene” articles for a wine magazine where I’d write little pieces about wine bars and illustrate them with quick shots of bottles and glasses and groovy wine-bar people showing what it took to be cool.
The problem I have, and perhaps many other analog photographers, is that I have too many cameras. They are just too affordable and too enticing to someone who remembers how much they would have cost new. Which leads to the second problem: which film do I have in which camera? Usually I have a small field note book with me in which I note date, film, camera and as much as I can about each photo taken on that roll. But of course, for a recent trip to Italy, not only did I forget my tripod, I also forgot my field book. Which lead me to a possibly fatal mistake that eventually lead to this experiment.
I can’t remember exactly what triggered the idea to shoot underwater with a film camera first: a mention of the Nikonos camera in my twitter feed, or the painterly effect I got this winter on film with an early morning shot in the fog. But the idea formed, and it stuck. I had never heard of the Nikonos, so I googled it, and found a great looking camera system with interchangeable lenses that is waterproof.
