Aunt Fiesty's Camera

One thing I've learned how to do since opening my Etsy shop is to take pictures of the things I make. I worked as a freelance photographer for several years, so I have experience in journalistic and documentary photography and black & white darkroom work, too. I also used to do a lot of casual portraits. But product photography was new to me.

In a couple of other posts on this blog I showed you how I take my pictures using window light and reflectors (see "Taking Pictures" and "Taking Pictures Part 2: Reflections") so I won't elaborate on that here.

I decided to apply those techniques to my collection of vintage cameras. One of my most recent acquisitions is this Argus C3 35mm rangefinder camera.

This particular camera once belonged to my Aunt Fiesty. That wasn't her real name. We just called her that because she was. I heard that the nickname came from my grandmother, a classmate of Aunt Fiesty's in college, but that was before she married my grandfather, Aunt Fiesty's brother. My grandfather's nickname was "Speedy". Yeah, it's that kind of family!

My family is aware of my fascination with vintage cameras, so when my Aunt Fiesty passed away, they knew I would give this camera a place of honor in my collection. It was kept in a leather case that barely had a mark on it. I thought if the case was that pristine, what must the camera inside look like! And I wasn't disappointed.

As you can see from these pictures, it looks almost like brand new.










If you'd be interested in getting a photo of this Argus C3 camera, I have it available in my Etsy shop as a 5x7 photo and an ACEO.

If you've had some experience with the Argus C3, leave a comment and tell me about it. And if you have an "Aunt Fiesty" of your own, I'd love to hear from you, too!

My Dad's Cameras

A few posts back I mentioned my dad and all the pictures he took of my family when I was a kid. As Father's Day approached this year I wanted to make something special for him. I'd been combing through all my old photography magazines I'd collected, looking for small images of cameras and other paraphenalia that I could use to make buttons, magnets and thumb tacks for my etsy site. So I went digging again to see if I could find the cameras Dad used.

I found them.

A beautiful full page ad for the Yashica 44.

A smaller image of the Leicaflex SLR and an even smaller one of the Miranda G from old annual buyer's guides included in the magazines.

Not wanting to take a chance on ruining my only copies of these images during the construction of my projects, I opted to scan these into my computer, tweak the brightness and contrast and sharpen them up a bit. Then I used printouts of them instead of the originals.

For each camera, I carefully cut out the entire image, leaving only the camera itself and no background. I glued these to green cardstock and cut mats for each out of black matboard. The Yashica 44, matted, is 5 x 7 inches and each of the others are the standard ACEO size of 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, like others I've posted on my Etsy site.

I had called Dad to warn him that his Father's Day present would be arriving late, but he said he didn't mind. We've been spreading out our holidays lately, making them last a long time after letting the dates slip up on us too late for gifts and cards to arrive on time. Mom was the one who always remembered such things and since her death a little over a year ago the rest of us have been trying to play catch-up. Oh, well...it makes those special occasions last a little longer.

I finally mailed these today.

I hope he likes them. I think he will.

New ACEOs

The puzzle ball is still in progress, but I hope to finish it today.

I got distracted making some new ACEO's that I had a lot of fun with. I've printed out lots of my photographs in tiny sizes so I can make more soon. Here's what I've added to my etsy site:




Here are two others I made, too. I've given these to a couple of friends of mine, but I'll probably make some similar ones to post on etsy, too:






And here's another one that's not listed on etsy yet, but will be soon:



Now if I can keep from getting distracted by ACEO possibilities, I'll get that puzzle ball finished!

Dancing With the Stars, Etc.

I decided to try my hand with the ACEOs I see listed on Etsy. Art Cards Editions and Originals, they say it stands for, although if they're traded and not sold they're Artist Trading Cards or ATCs. Apparently the only rule is that they have to be 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size.

Since I've been wading through lots of small images from vintage magazines I've been using to make my 1 inch buttons, I thought some of those would be worthy of showcasing on their on ACEOs. I got out my hand-held mat cutter, made some tiny measurements, and here's what I came up with*:






I've been making a lot of 1 inch buttons using small images of classic cameras from old photography magazines I've collected and I thought I'd use some of those, too:





It's a challenge cutting tiny little beveled cuts that are only 1 or two inches in a piece of matboard that's only 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size...but then, I love a challenge!