Well, that’s a long title for a photo post, but it does the job. I have a feeling this will be a rambling kind of post… I am tired, my school is being ofsteded, and I am watching the FA Cup at the same time 🙂

I have tried this model of camera before, but this example came to me via a reader. He said he had a rough old camera and did I want it. When I read it was a Brownie, I thought, why not? Brownies are simple cameras and no matter the state, it should work.

When it arrived, well, it was rough. The viewfinders were very dirty and the skin was dropping off in swathes. I ended up pulling it off and sanding down the sides to remove the surface rust.

The front of this camera pulls off quite easily, giving you access to the mirrors and viewfinders. I did that and left the front section off while I dealt with the body.

As this was a proper vintage camera, I decided I wanted to do something fairly distressed to the cover. I had an old book of Shakespeare sonnets that I had been saving for just this type of job. Once I had covered the camera in appropriate verses, it didn’t look quite right to me. Then I remembered the mulberry tissue paper I bought for a bellows repair. Finally, I gave the whole thing a wax varnish to protect it.

I love it! I had already checked the shutter mechanism and that seemed to work fine. I gave the lenses a clean before reattaching the front. Then I loaded a roll of Kentmere 100, it didn’t fit. This camera is a Six-20, hence the name on the front. Sometimes you can squeeze a 120 in, but not with this camera. I had to reroll the film onto a 620 spool for it to advance smoothly.

I took the whole ensemble to Blackpool for the day.

I took a few shots then went for cake and coffee at The Hive Gallery. They have offered me a solo show at the end of the year, exciting! More on that closer to the time. Anyway, I put the camera on bulb mode to take a shot, then I forgot to switch it back for instantaneous. Oops, I haven’t done that for a while. So here are the few shots I got from the roll as the rest were over exposed.

The last Blackpool tower shot is also a double exposure. I took the seagull photo first, then the tower.

Well, that was fun. I will use the camera again, maybe soon as it is International Brownie Days in February. I love how it is ‘days’. I get frustrated when things are a week or a day as I am often busy on the right date or the weather is awful.

In other news, I finally sorted out my photo books and got myself a fancy shelf. It is always nice to go through books I haven’t seen for a while as they were quite higgledy-piggledy. A whole shelf unit for photo books and zines. I will have to get a few more.

And finally, I added a button, at the request of another reader, so you can subscribe to the blog. You can find that below.