Dad's Lancer

About a year ago I loaded my dad's Ansco Lancer with some Efke R100 B&W 127 format film I got from Blue Moon Camera in Portland, OR. My original idea was to take some amazing photos, get them processed and framed and give them to him as a Christmas present. However, the processing and mailing back and forth of the film took a lot longer than I originally thought it would. And it was way more expensive. And most of the photos didn't turn out as well as I wanted them to.

Moral of the story: it's probably better to develop film yourself if it's a specialty format and you don't want to spend a lot of money.

The germ of the idea still resonates with me, even though my plan totally failed in every conceivable way.

There's something poetic about taking photos with old cameras that were intensely loved at one time. Since I don't make a lot of money, all the cameras I've collected have been gifts or heavily used. They're not worth as much as a mint model, but I don't mind. They've got more energy attached to them.

And I gotta say, even though my venture with my dad's camera was such an epic failure, my heart fluttered when I looked at my prints for the first time. Even though the photos are not that technically impressive, they have a texture of affection that some of my other photos are lacking. Just the fact that the Lancer's little unimpressive lens captured the feeling in the air on that autumn week is really magical to me.