Another go around with an old friend
Image shown from eBay auction.
In a strange turn of events, I have accidentally won another insane eBay auction. If it weren’t for the amazing effort put in by the eBay support staff after the debacle involving a hostile buyer for my canon 1d (yes my idiot self had to sell a beloved camera for car repair and such), I would have sworn off the site entirely. In the wee hours of the morning I sent a random “joke” offer to a seller for the camera above and they accepted.
For an accidental $8 I accrued through doing those pointless online surveys for dimes, I said why the hell not and made a gamble. It’s tough to find motivation to not be online, despite my amazing surroundings, when you’re stuck with only a broken Nikon f2 eating half of every roll or breaking them mid-roll and my trusted Olympus with its now broken lens.
The focus ring is coming apart due to age. 7 years of going everywhere, I suspect.
This “little win” means so much. If you’re unfamiliar with my older work, ( hint: the images are buried in the earliest posts of this blog.) I used one of these and a Nikon f4s almost exclusively for a few years doing editorial fashion in Florida. I sold my old Argus c44 kit, as they are known, to a friend who fell in love with it. She had developed a focus issue in the geared finder so he got quite the deal. I sincerely can not contain my excitement. These lenses have accumulated a cult following with Sony users creating custom mods for their digital bodies. The “kit” lens has a 19 blade aperture and a full leaf shutter, providing flash sync throughout its entire shutter range. I have a sweet spot for leaf shutters for this very reason. The camera provided a solution to combating the harsh gulf coast sun, where the Nikon usually fell short. In my opinion the lenses rival most Leica lenses in color rendition. Sadly, this was argus’s only interchangeable model. Made in Ann Arbor, MI as well!
These are just a couple of the examples form the previous copy I owned.
With luck, I’ll find a few rolls of film for my trip down to LA. I am still, just shy of the GoFundme goal to repair the car. But the idea of having access to processing chemicals in California is brightening my day. As always, much of this work is for sale, so please message me for any bookings or print orders. Ultimately, this is how I fund my #vanlife. Speaking of which, will from now on be known as #focuslife, as this feels more appropriate to having a normal car and not an $80k custom conversion van, while not also making six figures and “living off the grid” to be trendy. I love the outdoors and I’d rather sleep outside. as always, thanks for the support.
I am dealing with a delay regarding the car and have been for the past few days. It’s just the basic suspension and bushing issues. Though it has been dampening my abilities to make it through the mountains and spend a week driving out to the Mojave. I have started a go fund me, since I am between paydays and projects, as my finances are short. I either have the money for gas or the suspension repair, but not both. The silver lining is that my friend’s wonderful neighbor has all the tools and equipment to help me do the over haul. I couldn’t be more grateful having a talented mechanic next door. The people in this region really do care about the well being of their neighbors. And it shows in so many ways.
There have been a few funny ups and downs the past few days, but this happens while fighting the rain, mechanical difficulties, and a large pile of mat board. Ive huddled myself away for the past two days, cutting and gluing, and building boxes. I have so much photo busy work ahead of me. And so much work to ship out.
Today I am taking off from shooting. I’d been planning to venture around the Flathead Valley for a multi day trip, circling the wildlife areas of the south, the Mission Mountains, and the northern end of the Flathead Lake. The goal was to find more bison to photograph and incorporate some of the stunning sunrises that I can never wake up early enough for. I’m all packed up, pending an hour of coolant work on the car. Instead, today became centered on the coolant system, after many debacles flushing the system the night before. If you read back to the earliest posts in this blog, you’d see that while being mechanically adept with bicycles, suspension and small electronics, cars are not always my best subject. The blog even acquired its name from an old travel friend who referred to an old bronica camera I repaired as a fortunate toaster, amazed that I cared so much about a kitchen appliance, until she realized it was just my camera.
Toasters of Fortune 