On February 11th, 2010, my Mom's birthday, I lost my last grandparent. Papa was 93, a few years short of living even longer than Uncle Oy-oy, as he always wanted to. I'll always remember him sitting at the lace-covered dining room table, creased slacks pulled up to show his socks, hands on his knees smiling and giving his granddaughters kisses and jokes between telling Nana he didn't need any more food. Papa always looked like he knew something funny, winking at anyone who might try to guess what it was, his mustache trying to hide a grin. I don't remember him with a camera, but there are boxes of photos to show that he once loved this one. It was given to me in his bowling bag, with a canning label stuck on the back, which I hope never falls off. I attached his orange and brown embroidered camera strap to my new digital Olympus, and this old OM 10 usually sits on the shelf, but today I got it down to give it some love, and this is what happened.
Two cameras at once, if you look closely! I focused my EP-1 through the OM's viewfinder, which i focused on the subject.
This took some practice and dexterity...
This technique is actually called Through the Viewfinder, or TtV, and is meant to be used with TLR cameras with larger viewfinders.
If you look closely at the left edge, you can see the light meter inside the OM-10
Look! film grain with no film!
I love the pinhole look of these photos, this trick is definitely getting entered into the playbook, and Papas camera will create again.
