My eldest son was born 1978 and when he 2008 had 30th birthday I made this cavalcade of old photographs as a present to him. Cinematically there is nothing of importance in this nine minute piece, but the interest lies in the pictures and their history.
I got my first camera on my seventh birthday, I think, or maybe it was the christmas before - yes, so it must have been because the first pictures are of the snowy yard and garage! So I was just six. My father was a keen and exploring photographer, who in the 50's developed his own films and photos. I have hundreds, maybe thousands of his negatives still in my keeping. So I started: ordinary pictures of friends on the yard or skiing, stray dogs fighting on the road, my little brother posing here and there... The camera was one of the first instamatics so I did not need an exposure meter. Actually I did use the camera a lot in different situations and got used to carry it with me. Yet there are no pictures of our houses or my grandparent's houses, which is regrettable. I did concentrate on people.
My first single lens reflex camera I bought in the beginning of 70's. I remember pondering the choice with my two years younger brother, agreeing and disagreeing, and finally he bought a Konica and I chose Olympus OM-1. My reasons were simple: it was smaller and lighter, had great optics and was not automatic. It had an inbuilt exposure meter but I chose the time and aperture. I did not like automatics as my brother did.
Actually I chose well. The pictures my brother took during first years are as good as mine, but then they start to deteriorate - I think the lens did not function so well any more. And the same I discovered when a friend of mine scanned his slides together with mine - he had had a Pentax SLR in 70's and also his pics were not so sharp and clear as mine. Again I thanked the Zuiko lenses.
During the years I acquired two other similar bodies of OM-1 and several objectives with focal lengths ranging from 50 to 200. I did not like wide angle effects so I never got a shorter than 35 objective. And then I had a series of extension rings for close-ups of insects and plants. They were quite useful and the real macro-objectives were just far above my budgets.
I developed the bw films myself using mainly Tri-x of Kodak and the similar product of AGFA. The film was sold in reels of 150 m and you could self wind it on smaller rolls - that was cheap! And I also made the pictures - mainly in different bathrooms of different apartments. It was quite messy and the photos had hairs and dust on then - but at least I did take them! I also used some film for slides, but as you could not make anything yourself it was more expensive and --- I did like the beautiful colors on the transparent material...
These pictures have been scanned from slides with a Nikon negative scanner - the friend with Pentax owns this scanner and together we have gone through a small amount of old slides scanning them and making some correction where correction are needed... Yes indeed. In the seventies and beginning of eighties Fuji had a slide film, that had development included in the price of the roll: you just paid one time! And it was cheaper than Kodacrome or Ektacrome or Agfa! And it had nice colors... I did use a lot of Agfa and those slides had kept well, preserved their colors! As had also Kodak's material. But that Fuji... somehow the green of those slides had turned to emerald - a turquoise green strikingly non-natural in pictures taken from green nature! And there were a lot of green in all my pics! So I had to correct the colors. Unfortunately changing that emerald affected also to other colors and so the correction in some slides works well and in some does not. Can't help - nothing is perfect! =D
Most of the photos have been taken with the Olympus, but some with varying little pocket instamatics that I used to carry in my bag. Always some camera with me! And some had really small negatives - one, I think had a nega sized 2x1 cm so not every frame is sharp and clear, but as the idea was to conway the feeling and atmosphere it is not so dangerous! I hope =D !
These photos have been taken on our rented summer home, a little old house made of timber! We stayed there of and on during summers from 1979 to 1985. It was a silent little place for exploring nature and dreaming, and I don't think he was bored even if there were no other children. He found so many ways to amuse himself and to play alone with simple things like branches and old rusty ovens...
So all these slides and negatives I brought to the final cut timeline and edited to Remembrance. I have always been very fond of cross-dissolving and here I just let go! Smile and enjoy!
Remembrance
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