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Explore, December 10, 2016 #462
See the Virgin Islands set.
Recently completed a bareboat charter in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). It is a sailor's paradise: fair winds and full of natural beauty everywhere you look.
Took the camera along but, quite honestly, there is little time for taking pictures while under sail. Most of the photos I'll post over the next few weeks were taken on shore. This one is a detail shot of a wooden shutter. It was taken in the late afternoon in Nanny Cay, Tortola, BVI. Just about every window in the BVI has shutters. They apparently come in handy during hurricane season.
Well, I had a lot of fun shooting a whole roll of film with my vintage Barnack Leica IIf. And the photos I have shown you already indicate that it still takes a good picture. But it is the nature of film photography that you never really know the results until you get your negatives back.
Sadly, two out of three photos turned out looking like these examples. And you can see in the unaffected portions that these would have been great pictures too. What on earth went wrong?
Vintage cameras are obviously more likely to have problems, especially if they have not been used regularly for many years. This camera is 72 years old, so the chances are I was the first person to shoot with it in decades. The problem here might simply be a lack of proper lubricants on the workings of the two internal shutter curtains. But don't take my word for it, let me quote an expert, Brett Rogers of Tasmania Film Photography :
"At the moment, there's a bit too much friction due to dried lubricants and possibly a little adjustment may be needed. Because the first curtain has slowed down... the curtains can no longer achieve their speeds by exposing the entire gate simultaneously, the edge of the second curtain is able to get closer to the first than is ideal... If the first curtain is dragging badly enough then, the second curtain may actually catch the first before they have reached the end of the film gate. When this occurs, you will have no exposure at all on a portion of the negative."
That seems to sum up this problem. So the next step will be to get Imaging By Design in Collingwood, Melbourne, to strip the camera back, replace the curtains and give it a good service. It won't be cheap, especially for a Leica.
But this is all part of the fun process of shooting with vintage cameras. I got extremely lucky with my 1954 Rolleiflex, and this one was not far away from being in great working condition as well. It certainly felt great in the hands.
Leica IIIf Camera Shutter Curtain Replacement
The same spot on the Eldred river with high water flows, shutter speeds of 1/20 and 1/640 of a second.
Have you ever wondered what your earliest memory is? For many years, the furtherest (is that a word?) back I could recollect was my first day at school but then I realised, it is probably to do with this house which is the subject of my Happy Window Wednesday shot.
When I was a very young child, before starting school, this house at Shorncliffe in Brisbane was my Mum’s doctor’s office (we would call it a surgery in Australia which is confusing for some I know) and he probably lived above. She must have caught the train down there and then trudged up the hill despite having heart disease. I can remember a day there with my sister who is two years younger and me, left in the waiting room while Mum went in to see the doctor. To our young minds at the time, she must have been gone for ages as I remember ending up outside with my sister, yelling out for Mum in some fear she had abandoned us and then being rescued and comforted by the nurse or receptionist.
I guess all ended well as I can’t remember anything else after that...perhaps it was just a nightmare.
The house is still there, in remarkably good condition and I think in the same colours which have never changed in the intervening years. I remember this day every time I pass which is reasonably frequently.
Shutters are not common in Queensland nor Australia, we tend to use awnings or other protective measures. You do see them and there has been some resurgence as part of modern architectural styles in some areas, but generally these types are decorative and not functional at all. And window boxes to boot, highly unusual!
Shorncliffe, Brisbane, Queensland. HWW.