[Leica] first camera

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

When I was ten it was 1960 and we were moving from New York to Chicago and
they got me a Brownie Starlet camera with a cool flash which hooked onto the
side. To me having a camera made me an adult.
http://www.brownie-camera.com/39.shtml
The pictures I took with this camera, my first roll of film, of the empire
state building and on top of it on the way to the airport where we took a
plane with real propellers on it to Chicago were as good as any roll I've
taken since. The shots are in my current portfolio right next to the sexy
girls and the tide pools from Weston Beach.
When we went back to NYC later on that year to visit in was in a plane with
no propellers on it. A Boeing 707. The stewardesses were so gorgeous I
turned red in the face whenever they came near me. They gave me a model of
the plane which I flew all over the first class or front section if the
plane which took the edge off of being in a plane with no visible method of
support.
Manufactured : 1957-62 Lens : Dakon Shutter : Rotary Quantity Made :
Original List Price : $6 Film Size : 127 Negative Size : 4x4 cm
I'm sorry but I still love shooting squares.

A few years later circa 1963 cartridge film was invented and I was 13 and I
got an Instamatic 100, square format again.
126 Cartridge  28x28mm
http://www.schuepbach.org/files/kamera/Bilder/K_I100.jpg
I'm sure this must be in the museum of modern art right next to the First
Ford mustang which came out right I think the same year or darned close.
The shots I took with this camera are in my current portfolio right next to
the sexy girls and the tide pools from Weston Beach.
Jacques Henri Lartigue I ain't but I sure have my pretensions.

I spent hours setting up shots of my parents crystal with colored water like
I saw in some Kodak pamphlet with my Instamatic 100 taped to a music stand
for a tripod. I shot slides with it. Carried them around in stiff plastic
pages.
My folks decided I needed a real camera so I got my first one a few years
later in 1965, a Voigtl?nder Vito BL. A 35mm rangefinder camera with no
rangefinder. The viewfinder also was fairly worthless. There may have been
framelines supposed to have been in there but were not. I put a Leica
rangefinder on it after awhile. My grandfather had used it and gave it to my
dad who used it. Both were doctors who like me got a darkroom at 13.
I shot with it from the ages of 14-21.
Shot this with it posted many times before from my website
http://rabinergroup.com/ImagePages/Motherchildindoorpage.html
It's always hard to make images prettier than the camera you are using
itself
http://www.lausch41.com/vito1.htm
Most of my cameras have been rather cute to say the least.

When I was 21 in 1972 I was a year into college and my dad had promised me a
"real camera, an SLR" and came through with a Nikon f2 which had been out
for less than a year.
Even though he and the rest of the world thought it was junk compared to an
F. which to me as a clunker but cheaper. But someday I'll look forward to
using one.
The lens I got with it and which was my only lens for years was a 45mm GN
Nikkor.
http://www3.pf-x.net/~ari/lens/gn_auto_nikkor-c_45mm_1-2.8_nkn/

The rest I'll bore you with some other time but I got a Rolleiflex when I
was 25 in 1975 and really started going to town.
Got my first Leica when was 42. An m6 with 50 Summicron.
It was a very good year.

For soft summer nights
We?d hide from the lights
On the village green



Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/