Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”
―
My parents gave me my first camera when I was eight years old. It was a hand-me-down Kodak Brownie Number 2. This camera used 120 film that was introduced by Kodak for the Brownie No. 2 in 1901 and over the years Kodak made five different versions of this camera, models A through F. It captured images that were 2 1/4-inch square. Later when I was in high school my folks gave me my first 35mm camera, an Argus C3 Matchmatic, for my birthday. Both of these gifts changed my life.
I remember the first photograph that I made with the Brownie. It was of a flag flying from a pole in Baltimore’s Collington Square park that was next to the bandstand where the city’s Municipal Band gave free concerts when I was a kid. So that particular shot, in that particular place has a special meaning for me, so maybe that’s why I made it to start with.
And because I was an eight year old kid, when I got my second roll of 120 film, I loaded it into the Kodak Brownie and went back to the same flag pole to make the same shot—again. I would love to have either one of those prints from that camera but they have long ago been lost in time.
But that didn’t stop me from trying it for a third time in more recent times with the widely unloved (but I still thought it was cool) Pentax K-01 mirrorless cameras. The camera was a yellow model just like the one shown at right.
I used the K-01’s built-in Extract Color digital filter to create an homage to my very first photograph but this new version wasn’t shot in Baltimore, Maryland, but instead was made on Wilcox Street in Castle Rock Colorado. Looking at the image on my 27-inch 5K iMac I was impressed by the K-01’s 16-megapixel resolution and the ability to have fun with its built-in Instagram-style special effects. Although the camera was not a hit at the time, copies of the K-01 in different colors, including yellow, are going for good money on eBay. Not sure what that means…
How I made this shot: Exposure for the flag photograph was 1/1000 sec at f/9 and ISO 400 with the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens set at 18mm. The image came out of the camera mostly as you see it above with maybe just a bit of burning and dodging applied in Photoshop.
My book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects is still available and (I think anyway) is a fun read. New copies are available from Amazon for $19.40 with used copies selling for less than two bucks, which is a bargain. There’s even a chapter on infrared photography.