I think I have a minor case of Mr. Toad Syndrome. I’ve been told that symptoms of this disease include a constant changing of pursuits, an incurable obsession with the current pursuit being pursued, and a total rejection of old pursuits in favor of new ones. Luckily, symptom three has yet to strike. Though I do burn through a lot of random hobbies, at least I hold onto to every one I acquire to some degree. My newest pursuit is toy cameras. This website got me hooked.
Toy cameras are generally vintage cameras from the fifties and sixties that are made of plastic. They have plastic lenses, often use medium format film, and come in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes. Just type “toy camera” into an ebay search. You’ll see what I mean. The most loved and adored toy of toy camera users is the Holga, a late bloomer that has tons of awful deficiencies including vignetting and light leaks. All these flaws culminate in a wonderfully distorted, dream-like image that is extremely addicting to shoot and collect. I was considering buying one when a friend offered to give me one of his old “toys.”
Introducing the Six Twenty Sunbeam, an off-brand TLR camera manufactured in Chicago.
Twin Lens Reflex cameras are really neat, both to look at and to use. The smaller bottom lens takes the picture. The larger top lens capture the image aimed at and projects it onto a ground glass on top of the camera. Kind of a primitive LCD screen.
The upside, or downside depending on how you look at it, is that you have to hold the camera below your face and look down to take a picture. I think it’s a blast!
I’m still cleaning up this old and slightly damaged camera. I’ll get some film for it soon and post some pics once I get them developed. Whoo hoo, what an absolutely glorious, scrumtuous way to take photographs! Toot toot!