First Slides, October 1972

When we were living in Upper Arlington, Grandmother Stein gave me a simple box camera. It was made of grey plastic, with a knob for winding, a shutter release and a window in the back. To advance the film, one turned the knob until the next number appeared in the window. The camera took 620 film, which must have had a paper backing carrying those numbers. The paper wound around the film when the roll was exposed, to protect the film from further exposure. Then, one transferred the empty reel to the uptake side and installed a new roll of film. Dad would take the film to the drugstore and bring home the prints on another trip. I still have the photos I took with that camera, which I will catalog and share sometime.

But that first camera played a role in gaining me my first slide camera, so it really is the start of the story. Dad liked to go exploring on the weekends, driving the VW microbus and later the Dodge van anywhere they would go. When we moved to Boulder, many of the roads were unpaved, so driving on dirt roads was just part of getting out and enjoying the mountains. On one such adventure, we ended up at the base of Sugarloaf mountain when the aspen had begun to turn. I took photos of the aspen leaves, but the results were disappointing because the film for the box camera was black-and-white. Mom admired the composition in the photos and decided to give me her old Argus C3 camera so I could start taking color photos.

Among my old black-and-white photos are pictures of the Boy Scout Camp at Chimney Rock Wyoming. I went to the camp in 1970 at age 11, so that predates the gift of the slide camera. I recall that Dad bought the Dodge van in December of 1970, and one can see in the picture of the front of the house that the VW van is in the driveway. Two years passed before I got my first slides developed.

It snowed about 11 inches on the 17th of September that year. It was wet snow, so we were sent out with broomsticks and bamboo poles to knock the snow off of the trees.This is the view from the west end of the house up toward Green Mountain, showing the trees and Forsythia bushes bowed under the weight of the snow. Paul shows how the boughs of the tree at the corner of the back deck almost touch the ground.

The house at 2200 Kohler Drive with the VW in the driveway. Note the depth of snow on the house and van, but also that the snow on the driveway is almost melted.

Another time shortly after we moved in, kids were sledding down Kohler Drive after a snow. One of the neighbors had put chains on his VW bug and was towing kids up the hill behind his car. I'm sure he enjoyed showing that having the engine over the drive wheels made his car more sure-footed on snow than most (at that time).

The slide camera sat idle for a year or two. I returned with Dad to Sugarloaf mountain and this time used the slide camera to record the turning aspen leaves. Most of these pictures are taken from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain.

It's probable that these pictures were taken shortly before the roll was developed in October of 1972.

I started experimenting with the camera when there was no film in it, and discovered that regardless of the speed setting, the camera seemed to keep the shutter open for the same (minimal) amount of time. I figured out how to take the front off the camera and found that there was a timing mechanism attached to the shutter. The pin on the timing mechanism that was supposed to be struck by the shutter was missing, so the timing mechanism never engaged. I visited a jeweler in the mall and described the dimensions of the pin I needed, and he produced a tapered pin that I was able to drive into the hole in the escapement cam. I initially thought that the pin was made of material that was too soft, and would never stand up to the abuse of picture after picture. Nevertheless, the repair held up until I retired the camera.

I also discovered that one of the mirrors in the rangefinder was maladjusted, so the rangefinder images never really merged. I adjusted the mirror, and then calibrated the rangefinder so that the split images aligned at the correct distance. The rangefinder worked by pushing against a small screw that followed a slot in the focus ring. The screw turned the lens mount in its spiral threads, to move it in and out and adjust the focus. 

Some time later, I loosened that follower screw and found that I could turn the lens mount out past the minimum focus point of the rangefinder. I fitted a piece of oiled paper over the back of the camera to turn it into a camera obscura, and then used my desk as an optical bench to focus the camera at selected distances. I scribed these distances onto the focus ring opposite the follower screw at that point. I then returned the lens to its normal position, but tightened the follower screw using my thumbnail. It was thus possible for me to take close-up photos in the field by loosening the follower screw and setting the focus manually. 

Before I bought my first SLR, all of my close-ups were taken in that way. Which easily explains why the subject was not always in focus, nor necessarily centered in the frame.