believe in film — Pho-Art Blog

I'm in the second week of my 52 Cameras project for 2016, and this week's camera is the Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash. The Holiday Flash uses 127 roll film and produces 8 photographs per roll. It's a bakelite camera with a Dakon lens that was produced from the mid 1950's to the early 1960's. I knew that I would need a bright sunny day to get good results from the camera and film that I was using - Rera Pan 100 film that I bought from Freestyle Photo last summer. The overcast, rainy weekend weather didn't look too promising for getting out to shoot, so I said to my wife on Sunday, "today looks like a good day to stay in my pajamas and work in my studio." She thought she would do the same and work in her sewing room. After taking a lunchtime nap, I woke up to see that the sun was glaring and I quickly got dressed and packed my camera bag to take a walk around town. It was good to get out for a walk even though it was chilly outside, the sun felt good. I had an idea of the some of the places where I wanted to take photos, so I headed in that direction. I thought it would be pretty easy to compose 8 shots on the route I was planning, but on my way to a spot that I'd thought about photographing before, the wind gusted and in came a blasting shower of sleet then rain. I quickly walked to an awning over a store entrance and texted my wife and asked her if she could come pick me up. I was soaked and had only been able to shoot 5 photos. I went home and changed into some fresh pajamas for the rest of the day. I did finish shooting the roll on Monday on my lunch hour and developed the film later that night. The finished negatives were scanned on Epson V500 Photo.

Thinking about what creative projects I might want to try in 2016, and considering my longstanding goal of shooting a roll or pack of film in every camera in my collection that I'm able to (I have over a hundred cameras), I've decided to attempt a 52 week project for 2016. My goal will be to use a different camera from my collection each week and shoot a roll or pack of film for that camera depending on the film type. I have a range of film cameras to choose from that I can decide which camera each week depending on the weather or what might be going on in my life that week (pinhole photo day, polaroid week, vacation, etc.). Some of the cameras use film that is no longer manufactured or hard to come by (116/616 cameras), so I will try to use another size film like 120 film respooled onto 116/616 rolls or even shooting 35mm sprocket photos. I will mostly be developing my own film when possible and posting the results on my blog. To start off my 52 Cameras project, I have a Miniature Remington 127 roll film camera that I've had for many years, but never used. It's a bakelite camera manufactured in Chicago, Illinois sometime in the mid-twentieth century. It has dual red film windows on the back which enables 16 vertical half frame photos on a roll of 127 size film. It has two shutter modes, instant and time. I checked over the camera to make sure the shutter was working and for the most part it's basically a point and shoot camera. The problem I had was that while I was shooting with it, one of the red film windows on the back of the camera came loose and was letting in light to the back of the camera. I quickly put it in my camera bag and when I got home I covered the hole with black electrical tape and decided to continue shooting with it but would only be able to get 8 photos instead of 16. I used Rera Pan 100 film developed in Arista Black and White film developer and scanned on Epson V500 photo. Most of the roll was shot on a lunch time walk to the post office with a co-worker in Baltimore. I was pleasantly surprised that I did get 8 photos after developing the roll, though there were some light leaks. But my goal here was to get something out of a camera and roll of film each week, so first week down for 2016!