Nathan Lewis, Untitled, 2009

[Photography can]…allude to other levels of reality in which a subject might be depicted as existing in two or more places simultaneously…the medium is capable not only of faithfully recording images fixed in time and place but also of producing those that transcend such limitations and exist in a mysterious limbo.

-- Martin Friedman

Brownie Holiday

Like most photographers I have a pretty ravenous habit of collecting old cameras, either for decoration or experimentation.

The term Bibliomania refers to someone who habitually collects books, so I assume I suffer from what can only be called "CameraMania"....unfortunately that sounds like a Geriatric Cruise theme! So in time I will think of a more appropriate name.

Recently I was shown this website, wherein the author collected old cameras, tested them, and shared the results. Junk Store Cameras

Needless to say I was inspired and wanted to start my own log of Camera experimentation!

For my first entry I wanted to begin with a camera very special to me, one that was given to me by my Grandmother, a Kodak Brownie Holiday.

Even though this is probably one of the most abundant "vintage" cameras you could ever find, this particular one is still very important to me.

It was produced from 1953 to 1962 and was widely popular. For my experiment I chose Efke R100 127 film, developed it in D76, and then scanned.

To me this Camera has an incredible look, it's somewhere between a true View camera and a LensBaby. The Depth of field just swirls away. Very unique looking results.

Memory demands an image

-- Bertrand Russell

Lewis', Sister and Brother, late 1980s

Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have the film.

-- Stephen Wright

If light is not just inimical to the Latent Image, but can indeed destroy it, this is not simply because it is what renders manifest: if it did only this, it would not destroy the secretive, the one who remains hidden even when manifest...Light, what renders visible, manifest, can destroy the Latent Image, the secretive only because light is simultaneously the paradigm of the secretive...

-- Jalal Toufic, "(Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the UnDead in Film," 2003

*I have replaced the word Vampire with Latent Image, the parallels are incredible.

Nathan Lewis, Untitled, 2009