Lucky Shinjuku

The Lucky Camera Shop, in Shinjuku, Japan. If you've got a keen eye, you can spot the price tags on some of those TLRs - 32,000 YEN for the Autocord there is equivalent to about $400 Australian. So prices weren't too bad. Of course, what I spent most of my time salivating over was the Leica M3, in just about perfect condition. A cool 500,000 YEN ($6000 Australia) for your rubber-necking, gaijin.

This was only the front window display - inside, pretty much every western, eastern, and soviet manufacturer was represented. There were even a few bakelite beasties that had me scratching my head. Alas, my mind was firmly set on trying to find that rare and most desirable toy, the Fujipet. No luck, I'm afraid.

** note: didn't even buying anything from here, not a sausage. i do think i nearly got kicked out by the owner though - punctuality is important in Japan, and i wasn't quite paying attention to the fact i walked into his shop 5 minutes before he opened. hey, he had the door open and everything...

Another (not really weekly) Vintage Image

Another one of those old images from my great grandparents' collection. No idea who the budgie is, but he/she was obviously part of the family.

ol' timey

Latest photos from the Holga 135. I am more and more impressed with this camera every time I get results back. I was a bit worried it might be a bit like a "pseudo-Holga" in that it mimics the look of the Holga 120, however I think that would be a bit unfair to say: the Holga 135 is definitely it's own camera.

Film used was Fuji Neopan 400.

Pointy

I always like buldings with these kind of rooves.

Not sure if it's a pity it's blurred (the dreaded B-switch).

Gate

More CH Smith. More urban dead space.

Pineapple

Pylons behind the derelict CH Smith warehouse in Launceston.

Hong Kong slides

In 1984 or thereabouts, my father went on a trip to south-east Asia. One of the stops was Hong Kong, where he picked up several boxes of slides aimed at the tourist market.

I was always pretty fascinated by these slides when I was a kid. The slides came with a tiny little mains-operated projector, and I spent hours looking at pictures of Hong Kong, Kowloon & all that sort of stuff. Endlessly amusing.

Anyways, I started to scan a few last year, here's one for the world to enjoy.

Weekly Vintage Image: 12

Possibly my great aunt & her...son? I'm a bit hazy on the multitude of relatives on this side of the family.

Nice red dress, though.

Weekly Vintage Image: 2

This would be my grandparents & one of their 4 kids. Dad? One of his brothers? I can't tell, unfortunately.

If anyone can identify the location, please do. I am assuming it's probably Sisters Beach (about 40 minutes drive west from Burnie) as I know one of my pop's brothers had a shack there, but the quality of the scanner combined with the age of the slides means it can be a bit hit & miss picking the spot!

Old slides

On the day of my wedding (February 2009), my dad gave me a shopping bag full of slides. Originally I had asked him to bring down some boxes of slides he bought in Hong Kong in 1984, which I used to enjoy looking at as a wee tyke - I thought it'd be fun to have a look, but mostly I wanted the tiny plastic projector he bought with them. However, somewhere along the line he also dug up another, much larger, and far more important box of slides.

You see, the slides were taken by my great grandfather, and feature images of my dad & his family in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unfortunately I lack a projector to view them large (dad forgot to bring this down), and my flatbed scanner just doesn't cut it. The above images were attempts to scan with a flatbed - not totally flash, but a start.

These are probably some of the few images in existence of my dad as a child. Photography wasn't a huge part of nan & pop's lives when their kids were growing up.

It's nice to have a photographic link to the past. Dad says his nan & pop (ie. my great grandparents) used to go for a Sunday drive with their grandkids quite regularly. In fact the first slide I looked at I instantly recognised as a view of the Great Western Tiers from the Bracknell area. I hope to find a few more gems when I get them scanned (whether I buy a cheap neg scanner & do this myself, or have them done by the local photo chain, I haven't decided).