Granddaughter Ruby turned six on Sunday.
I wanted to record the party and her smiling face, so I grabbed an Ikoflex on the way out the door.
Unless you’re a firstdegree camera nerd, “Ikoflex” may not ring a very loud bell for you.
Not to worry. They are twin-lens film cameras made by Zeiss Ikon for about four decades before and after World War II. They have two lenses stacked like the headlights on a ‘57 Nash Ambassador. The bottom one takes the photo and the top one lets you focus.
The very first camera I used as a cub sports reporter in the 1970s was a twin lens reflex, and I soon became enamored with them.
They are awkward to use, quirky and hard to focus, especially for someone trying them for the first time, and you get only 12 shots on a roll of 120 film.
But there is something undeniably cool and retro about them. Almost every time I use one, I get the recurring urge to stick a press pass in my hat and call the newspaper office to shout “Stop the press!”
But I digress.
The negatives are huge - 2.25 by 2.25 inches square - and make magnificent prints. I have a 16-by-20 poster in our kitchen of
I have a 16-by-20 poster in our kitchen of a shot of Kindra I made with a Yashica tlr. The details are so clear that you can see the individual threads in her sweater.
Aaliyah refers it to as the “larger-than-life-sized” photo of her mother.
I bought my first TLR in the early ‘80s and acquired a few more along the way, but I picked up a lot during the COVID shutdown .
Things like twin-lens cameras were cheap on eBay at the time and there wasn’t much else to do, so I bought more cameras than I am willing to admit in print. Let’s just call it a buying frenzy and let it go at that.
Among the cameras were three Ikoflexes, all dating from the early 1950s. They were built with typical German over-engineering and were armor-like, but all had suffered from neglect during most of their 70 years.
So I sent them off to a fellow named Mark Hansen in the great state of Wisconsin. He restored them to factory pristineness and I have enjoyed using them to time travel.
The one I grabbed on Sunday was a model Ia, which was in production from 1952 to 1956. Perhaps the camera and I share a birthday or close to it.
So, there I was at the birthday party in the park, trying to get Ruby and her guests in focus as they played with May Day streamers and ate cupcakes.
I will be quick to admit I could have gotten way more photos way easier with yonder digital camera or even a mobile phone, but using the Ikoflex was more fun.
And I have two rolls of film waiting to be developed.
There is no digital equivalent of seeing the negatives emerge from the developing tank or getting to see a granddaughter’s face emerge as if by magic on a sheet of photo paper in the darkroom.
And, best of all, shooting with an old film camera makes you slow down and enjoy all the moments that happen only once, like a granddaughter turning six.