The easy option is to fish with my modern tackle on a commercial fishery, that is if I want to catch fish all day. It has to be said that the aforementioned is perhaps not my primary objective. I do the things I do because they make me smile. I like to think that I take the fun option. Cane rods are not as adept at catching fish as their carbon cousins, they are more fun though.
So then, let's take photography. A digital camera will produce a high resolution image that can be manipulated, should one wish, to become black and white, then aged, quite simply. That's not real though is it?
At a summertime car boot sale I chanced upon a Kodak Brownie 44A, a camera that is contemporary to some of my old tackle. I purchased it for 50p and purposely hung it around my neck for the rest of the sale,much to the embarrassment of Lady Sarah. I new exactly what I wanted to do.Just like the rods I refurbish, I wanted it to live again, and in style. I would purchase a film for it and use it at Redmire Pool!
Lady Sarah gave a customary eye roll at my latest barmpot scheme.
The camera takes the now obsolete 127 film. I thought my only option would be ebay, and after some perusal found that I'd only be able to buy the film from old expired stock or from eastern Europe. I didn't fancy either option and searched the internet for something else. Fortunately ,I stumbled across this fantastic site....Lomography....which in turn directed me this site,a site with instructions on how to convert your Brownie camera to the more readily available 35mm film format.
Having carried out the conversion I purchased an Ilford HP5 plus 400 film and loaded it as instructed.
Having the camera alongside my digital at Redmire just seemed right, and I followed the shooting and winding procedure as set out on the site.
On return I sourced a processing lab in Devon...Spectrum Photo Lab and having manually rewound the film under the duvet, it was sent off to be printed.
I'd long forgotten about the anticipation, the old questions, "Will they be blurred, double exposed etc."
I was able to obtain 15 images from the 24 exp.film and I'll let you make your own decisions about the results, ironically digitalised here in order upload to the blog.
Clearly not the easy option, but it has been really good fun.
I think they have an old fashioned charm and thoroughly recommend that you have a go.
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