Through the Viewfinder

I spent some time yesterday at the dining room table with some black posterboard and duct tape and a compass making a ridiculous looking contraption to connect my digital camera to an old kodak duaflex that I found on ebay for $10.

After an hour of measuring and taping, I am now the proud owner of a long skinny paper rectangle that fits around the various knobs of the duaflex and blocks out the light so that I can shoot my slr through the lens of the old camera.

The contraption is ridiculously unwieldy. And also everything is backwards, which means my instincts are all out of whack.

It’s like if you’ve only learned to drive forward and you’ve got the hang of it and then suddenly you have to drive in reverse and turn one way in order to move the other which means you keep running right into curbs. Or maybe that’s just me…

And yet, I am already rather obsessed. I love the softness and flatness of the images I can make with this camera, the scratches and grain and the way light bleeds in at the sides sometimes.

As much as I love my sharp digital camera (and all its bells & whistles), it’s refreshing to leave a little bit to chance and let the edges bleed.