My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 110. You know the one with the cute flash shaped like a cube that would pop flash, rotate, repeat. I was 16 and a senior in high school.
Over the years I have been a casual recreational photographer but it wasn’t until I stumbled upon an online photo sharing site called flickr that my interest really peaked. In 2005 flickr absolutely changed the way I looked at photography, the way I produced images and certainly changed the way I looked at the world. I began to see beauty in everything. And I learned so much in my flickr days. Different lenses and different techniques, different editing methods. I even went retro and back to film playing with a Polaroid camera and a little Diana Lomography (toy) camera.
I saw how an image that would have been a throw-away in the past was now a creative new thing.TtV - now that was a new one! Thru the Viewfinder was a fun way to create images with a grainy, vintage feel. Takes a little practice but I loved it and am just now rediscovering it. Back in the day I constructed a tube to place over the vintage twin lens Argus. I point my DSLR or Point & Shoot or even my cell phone camera into the tube (or directly over the top viewfinder) and snap away.
The result is a grainy square unique image. It takes some practice, some patience and some time but challenges can be fun. Especially when I see an image that makes me smile.
In more recent times I purchased two additional twin lens cameras - one vintage, a Brownie Starflex camera and one new plastic lens twin lens camera. These images were created by aiming my iPhone camera over the viewfinder of each.
Brownie Starflex images:
The plastic twin lens camera produced an image exactly as one would think - like shooting thru plastic!
I am grateful to be curious and always ready to learn something new - expand my horizons, let down my guard and not be afraid to make a mistake. I learn much more from my mistakes than things just going perfectly.
And in this day and age... anything to distract me for just an hour or so from the nightmare that is our reality.
