8 posts tagged “camera”

I just wanted to share some of the newest photography-related button magnets I have listed in my Etsy shop. These are 2 1/4 inch ones:

I love vintage cameras! I think I've mentioned that before....

Over the weekend I sold 4 sets of 1 inch buttons that I made using images recycled from vintage photography magazines. These showed pictures of darkroom equipment...enlargers, film cannisters, even the beloved old Gra-lab 300 timer! I loved printing my own black & white prints back when I had access to a darkroom. The first time I tried it I felt like I'd found my paintbrush! And I had a feeling there might be some others out there who felt the same way, so I made these buttons. And I'm glad to know they did indeed mean somthing to someone out there! I have lots more where they came from, too. I have some copies of the same ads in different magazines, but each button is a little different...each one is one of a kind. So check my shop again if something like that suits your needs.

I also sold a couple of 2 1/4 inch keychains I made, also using recycled images from vintage magazines. The two I sold showed a Pentax Spotmatic and an Olympus OM4-T. I have more with other cameras and will continue to post similar keychains that showcase those classic oldies. Maybe they're the cameras you started out with, or maybe the ones you remember your dad or grandpa using. Hey, these would make a great stocking-stuffer for your favorite photographer. Now there's an idea!

I've seen lots of comments from fellow Etsy dealers about using Flickr, so I finally decided to check it out. I signed up, started uploading some of my photos, and checking out some groups to join.

Naturally, I joined the EtsyMoms group, since I'm a member of that Street Team. Looks like there are lots of different Etsy groups, so I want to investigate some of those, too.

I love recycling images from old magazines, so I've been searching under "vintage" and "retro" to see if I might find some kindred spirits and places where my photos would fit in. I stumbled upon (stumbleupon.com is another one I've gotta check out!) a group called "old photographic cameras" that got my attention. I love vintage cameras and have a blast making buttons with pictures of old cameras and darkroom equipment and such...I've mentioned that in a couple of previous entries in this blog here and here and here and here. So, I stopped to take a closer look at that Flicker group. Unfortunately, I found only one post in that group, from several months ago.

Somebody had posted a couple of blurry pictures of an old camera, and asked if anybody knew what it was. The fun thing was ...I knew! I recognized it as an old Russian rangefinder. I grabbed my old camera price guide off the shelf and looked it up. Sure enough, it was Russian Zorki 4, made from 1956-1973. I can't tell from those pictures, but if it has a lever wind instead of just a knob to wind the film with, then it's a Zorki 4K.

I don't know if anybody else with an interest in old, obscure cameras will read this...but I got a kick out of it!

(With a little more looking and I did find another vintage camera group to join over there!)

A few posts back I mentioned my dad and all the pictures he took of my family when I was a kid. As Father's Day approached this year I wanted to make something special for him. I'd been combing through all my old photography magazines I'd collected, looking for small images of cameras and other paraphenalia that I could use to make buttons, magnets and thumb tacks for my etsy site. So I went digging again to see if I could find the cameras Dad used.

I found them.

A beautiful full page ad for the Yashica 44.

A smaller image of the Leicaflex SLR and an even smaller one of the Miranda G from old annual buyer's guides included in the magazines.

Not wanting to take a chance on ruining my only copies of these images during the construction of my projects, I opted to scan these into my computer, tweak the brightness and contrast and sharpen them up a bit. Then I used printouts of them instead of the originals.

For each camera, I carefully cut out the entire image, leaving only the camera itself and no background. I glued these to green cardstock and cut mats for each out of black matboard. The Yashica 44, matted, is 5 x 7 inches and each of the others are the standard ACEO size of 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, like others I've posted on my Etsy site.

I had called Dad to warn him that his Father's Day present would be arriving late, but he said he didn't mind. We've been spreading out our holidays lately, making them last a long time after letting the dates slip up on us too late for gifts and cards to arrive on time. Mom was the one who always remembered such things and since her death a little over a year ago the rest of us have been trying to play catch-up. Oh, well...it makes those special occasions last a little longer.

I finally mailed these today.

I hope he likes them. I think he will.

I grew up in a family of photographers. Some of my earliest memories include gathering with the whole family in a corner of the living room near the largest expanse of blank white wall to watch a slide show presented by my father. Dad had an old Argus slide projector...the kind with a flat round plate with slots for the slides...you loaded one in the top, rotated the plate until the slide was in its proper place, then take out the old one. One by one, we'd see the whole show. And in the blank spaces when he was searching for a particular slide or fixing one that was upside down my brother and I would jump up and start our shadow-animals show while everybody waited.

One of the cameras Dad used often was a Yashica 44 twin lens camera that used 127 format film. Later it was a Miranda G outfit with three lenses and then Leicaflex, the first SLR ever produced by Leitz. I learned photography using that old Miranda G and I still have it. The Leicaflex I sold years ago (with Dad's permission) to get my first Martin guitar, but I'll save the guitar stories for another day. I started to really get interested in vintage cameras when I began researching that Miranda camera, wondering if I might find more lenses to go with it.

I started browsing camera shows when I lived in Ft. Worth, TX, talking to photographers at the campus print shop where I worked and became thoroughly fascinated. If you knew the features of a particular camera, understood how it worked, and could find the film it used, you could take it out and get beautiful pictures with it, just like when it was new.

Working without a light meter forced you to be more aware of the light and how it played on the subject. When I entered a room where I knew I wanted to shoot some candids of people, I would take a small hand-held light meter from the back pocket of my jeans and take a reading off my hand in the shadowy corners and in the brightest part of the room. Then I knew the effective range of shutter speeds and apertures I could use. I would watch for the changes in lighting and shoot without having to refer to light meter again all evening and was generally pleased with the results. Of course, I could've gotten a new camera with a light meter built in, maybe even with autofocus...but where's the challenge in that?

To honor this heritage of photographers and the great old cameras they used, I've been making buttons with images of classic cameras recycled from photography magazines I've collected. Some are listed for sale in my etsy shop, and I have lots more I haven't gotten around to listing yet. (I've also made some ACEO's with them, but you'll have to see a previous entry for those.) Here are a few of my favorites. (If you don't see your favorite classic camera here, leave me a comment and tell me what you're looking for...chances are, I've got it here somewhere!).....

I just love this button machine! I made more and posted them on etsy this weekend. I've got pin-back buttons and button magnets, and now I've made some into thumb tacks, too. Here are the latest:

I've been playing around with ideas for ACEO's for a couple of days and finally listed a couple today. I've been gathering a lot of images from vintage magazines to use for my 1 inch buttons and I kept seeing some that were a little too big for that, so I figured...why not make ACEO's with them?  And, since I'm a camera collector, I started seeing lots of possibilities for using classic camera images for these, too.

I cut 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches blanks out of black matboard, then cut tiny little beveled windows for these images. I'm sure I'll list more soon, but here are my first two:

I've been having more fun with my button machine...and cleaning out all those old photography magazines from my basement at the same time. Here are a few I've listed on my etsy site....