I’m more of an SLR guy, but it was inevitable that I too would have to get a taste of the rangefinder world. For me, it started with a “Revue 400 SE”. Revue is like a private label of the german mail order company “Quelle”. It has the same features as the Minolta Hi-Matic 7sII or the Konica Auto S3. I would even say that they are pretty much the same, but I don’t want to start a debate…
My brother-in-law recently gifted me a Bronica ETRS that he had received as a gift from his step-father. While his step-father had the camera, he had let the grandkids play with it – not like you or I might “play” with a camera, but like kids would play with a ball. It’s a little rough around the edges! But the camera is fully functional… a testament to how well these cameras were built.
One Christmas, early in my marriage, I ended up spending Christmas at my in-laws house, which was in a different city from the one I lived in. Due to a mix-up caused by the logistical nightmare of bringing a newborn baby with all it’s day-to-day stuff and all the Christmas gifts to another city in a tiny car, I ended up at the in-laws house for several days with a single gift for myself, from my parents, Ansel Adams’ “Basic Techniques of Photography, Book II”.
Sometimes the urge to do something out of the norm comes over me from out of the blue; like stopping at the Salvation Army that I drive by literally every day, yet rarely giving a moments heed to. On this day in early March though, the urge was unmistakable. I really didn’t know what I thought I would find but in I went. I cruised past stacks of dishes and coffee cups thinking I might find the odd bit of vintage restaurant-ware (another interest of mine) but as usual, nothing.
It is common today that women are photographed sexy and slightly undressed to attract attention to the subject, photographer or both. There is so much of this sort of photography that it has almost become kind of disposable art, with a viewing time of only 1-3 seconds. In the best-case scenario, the model gets a like, and is then replaced with a new photo on the screen with just one swipe.
