My dad bought this camera in 1956, when he was in the army, stationed in Germany. Originally it came in a leather case: it had a thin leather strap and hung down at waist level. I have photos of dad with this camera, in its case, standing on a boat crossing Lake Lucerne.Originally it had a light meter that was as big as four sugar cubes. This meter no longer works. It still has a flash attachment that fans out beautifully - but the cable that connected it is gone. I remember dad using the flash once, at Christmas. It seemed like a great deal of difficulty.
Eventually I came to have the camera. At some point in the 70s it fell out of favor for instamatics and other 35 mm cameras.
I've noticed though that when I use this camera I get pictures of singular quality. It's a 35 mm range finder with a 50 mm lens. Online a web review my friend Bob read referred to this camera, an Agfa Ambi Silette, as "the poor man's Leica."
It's out dated technology, yet my digital camera can't do this simple thing: click the shutter the instant, in focus, I press the button. With this camera true enough I do have to focus, and there's no telephoto (how I wish my dad had bought the lenses back then), but when I click the shutter, the picture is snapped. I know what I got - accounting for the vagaries of film development and if I got the aperture right. Compositionally I know what I have.
One thing with my digital is that I've often watched the photo I wanted to take come and go from my view finder while I wait for this thing to click.
The sad thing is that the Agfa's days are numbered: film is being produced less and less; the black and white that is used today doesn't compare to the black and white I bought 10 years ago; and labs do indifferent work.
Mechanically this camera is a wonder: an excellent lens, a great German camera, and there's no battery. Imagine no battery: too many things are dependent on battery power. The Agfa symbolizes for me being off the grid. If I knew how to develop and had a closet sized lab, I could produce my own photos from start to finish.
Painting is off the grid, as is drawing. The art of existence, as Kierkegaard talks about it, is off grid as well.
4 comments:
A picture of a camera? REminds me of Greg Brown's lyric about a picture of a picture of a whore, holding a picture of a john.
clicky
See Steve Earle on Letterman. Bet Dylan could never get on that show.
I was thinking of the difficulty of time travel where I go back in time to take a picture of my camera with ---- MY CAMERA!
I didn't think of the Brown lyric. Of course my favorite lyric from that song is roughly "change is a semi with smoking wheels filling the rear view mirror."
I've seen Dylan on Letterman.
I've seen Dylan own Letterman.
But for owning Letterman, the tops is Harvey Pekar.
Nobody owns Letterman. Not even Madonna. Was watching some Little Feat Vids and esp. one with Lowell George playing slide.
By the way, that is my grandmother's gravy boat in the background. After she died and my sister and I were going through her things, we were thrilled to find it. It carries memories of dinner after dinner (and by that I mean the noontime meal) at her house--not to mention the fact that every morning she used it to pour gravy out to feed the farm kitties.
It's interesting that we have so many relics of our past lying around the house.
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