More than Just a Camera

For the last few years of the Seventies after leaving the Royal Air Force, my Dad took a job that meant he had to spent a decent amount of time in the US. His jobs over the years took him all over the world, and we didn’t see him for months on end in my early childhood, but I know he really enjoyed the international travel, despite his protestations that it was tiring (I’ve since worked for short stints abroad and, while tiring, you make time to have a bit of fun too; otherwise, what’s the point?!).

During his time in Massachusetts, he bought an SLR camera—a Pentax K1000. He apparently bought it in Boston for about $75 and it came with a case, a 55mm f/2 lens and a Vivitar 283 flash.

The case has long gone—I think it perished as it was made of some kind of faux leather plastic—and despite some discolouration of the plastic, the flash is still working. The 55mm lens is in perfect condition—I’m not sure how the Old Man managed that, given that it was put through its paces back in the day.

The camera itself is in fully working order except for the light meter. I looked it up online and it seems that the fault is common: the little piece of flimsy wire connected to the bottom of the battery slot, which powers the light meter, has come apart, and it’s a delicate job to get it fixed. I tried with some metal tape, but it didn’t work. There’s probably something inside that also needs to be done—perhaps another loose wire somewhere —but despite my efforts to fix it, I haven’t been able to. Perhaps some online service could do it, but I need to wait until I’ve finished shooting the film—it’s loaded with Ilford ISO 3200 at the moment, which isn’t brilliant for the middle of summer. I need to find some low light somewhere for that one!

The camera isn’t the whole story. Sure—it’s a beautifully-crafted piece of engineering: the shutter sound satisfyingly confirms that a photo has been taken; there’s no doubt in your mind that the shutter has been released when you hear that clunk and an overriding high-pitched ping sound that resonates for a little while after the main sound has dispersed; the wind lever feels like it’s properly working hard to advance the film—none of this auto-wind luxury; the split-image focusing system is something that brings back childhood memories of being allowed to use Dad’s camera and take a shot—but only if I focused correctly.

But it’s the memory of the camera around my Dad’s neck—the now-retro image of a father holding an SLR. There are very few photos of Dad when we were growing up, because he was the one behind the lens. Thankfully there are some: I scanned some of my parents’ old negatives and found some lovely photos of me as a baby with my Dad (thanks Mum!), but most of them are of other people. It’s the memory of the time he took a load of photos when Granny—his Mum—came to visit us and we walked all around HMS Victory and saw the Mary Rose in Portsmouth, only to find out later on that he hadn’t loaded it with film (Granny was unamused!). It was something that we weren’t allowed to touch when we were children—my kids don’t get to play around with my camera equipment either, unless supervised.

That camera got me into photography—perhaps more by accident than by design or instruction. I wasn’t really allowed to use it when I was a child, and I got my first SLR as a graduation present when I was 22. Dad helped me with the first few rolls of film, passing on helpful tips and sound-bites, such as “if five or six of the photos from the roll are real crackers then it’s been a successful film.” I’ve since upped that success rate target to be 25-30 photos per film, as it’s so darned expensive to process, but I know what he meant: do you have five or six photos from the reel that stop you in your tracks and make you say “YES! THAT’S the shot!”? Those are the photos to which he was referring.

When he had a stroke in 2012 and was no longer able to take photos, my Mum gave me the K1000, and it’s a treasured item in my camera arsenal.

I've thought long and hard about whether I want to get it fixed. We couldn't fix Dad after his stroke, so there's something fitting, albeit a little morbid, about not fixing the camera. I don't know—perhaps by fixing it, I can keep him alive a little longer.

One day, I’ll pass in on—with the strict instruction never to sell it.