“The Fells”

Lubitel 166 / Kodak film

I forget which camera took this roll, my best guess is the Lomo. It’s medium format and 6×6, so it’s that or a Yashica. Just now I am using another Kodak, this time a Retinette 1B, made in 1959, the same year as the Coloursnap I used last week. The Retinette has a much higher quality feel, and a Rodenstock Reomar 45mm f/2.8 lens in a Prontor 500-LK shutter, with speeds from 1/15 to 1/500th, so already it is considerably more promising than the ‘snap. If it takes pictures half so well, I will be happy.

Everything about vintage cameras is an exercise in uncertainty and patience. That is good for the soul at least. Last year I read The Left Hand of Darkness for a second time (I first read it in my teens). This stayed with me:

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness