Dad’s retirement

Recently on my blog I posted about using flash bulbs with an old box camera. The photos in this post are taken with said box camera, and the indoor ones are using flash bulbs. This is my first attempt at using flash bulbs, and indeed at any flash photography on film.

I had a bit of trouble getting it to fire reliably at first^[1], so the first photo is exposed twice, once with flash and once without. Most things in the non-flash exposure are invisible, except for the lamp.

Once at my parents’ house in Nuneaton, Dad demonstrated that while he may be retired now, his knees are still good enough to kneel by the fireplace.

Clearly photos by the fireplace did not offer a sufficient thrill to entice my brothers home, so I went to pick up Edmund from Nuneaton railway station a little later on. Of course,any excuse for some photos…

Here I knelt as close to the edge of the platform as I dared while a train passed. You can see the concrete kerb-stone at the bottom of the picture. The driver gestured that I should get back a bit, but I wasn’t likely to mess up a photo with the price of film these days!

On Sunday, we ate at the Courtyard. Edmund’s girlfriend Lara came along too and I finally managed to get everyone to pose together for this photo. Nobody was quite ready for the snap, but having spent about quarter of an hour setting the camera and flash up, I wasn’t likely to try again! I think the not-quite-posed nature of the picture adds a lot to it 🙂

After the meal, Oliver took custody of the camera and after some tuition, managed to make it work.

After the meal on Sunday, Hana and I returned home to Bristol. I processed the film, dried it, scanned it, and uploaded it here – long before my parents had even looked at the photos on their digital camera. They’re probably still looking for the USB thing-a-ma-jig that plugs into the digital-ma-bob right now! 😀

Who says film is impractical?

[1] I disassembled the flashgun and cleaned the internal copper contact strips with cotton buds and spirit vinegar. I also found out that you have to scrape the oxide off the terminals of each flash bulb before use.