The first camera that I remember was my mother's Brownie box camera. She would stand with her hand cupped around the viewfinder, waving the camera from side to side and up and down in an attempt to locate the subject that she was trying to photograph. The image in the viewfinder was so vague that people would often appear in the resulting photo with the top of their head missing. The camera took just 8 photos on a standard roll film size 120 and the negatives measured 6cm x 8cm. The film was advanced through the camera by winding a knob on the side while watching for the next number to appear in a little red window in the back of the camera. Often the last two or so frames would be expended on anything or anybody to hand just to use it up. Then it was taken to the local chemist for processing and for me it was an agonizing wait for them to come back. The prints would be contact prints made directly from the negatives and as the packet was opened the question was always, "Have they come out alright?"
The next camera that was bought was an Ensign Ful View (no, that's not a spelling mistake) so called because it had a big viewfinder on top that made it easier to locate the subject matter. The negative format for this camera was 6cm x 6cm so we could get 12 photos on a 120 roll.
This photo of Blackpool Tower was taken with the Ensign Ful View and was the first photo that I ever took. The inscription on the back of the print reads, 'Taken by Terry 1951 - first attempt'. I hope that you will give me credit for having not cut the top of the tower off.
Serious photography began for me in the late 1950s with the acquisition of an Agifold. I had left school and was working as a darkroom technician in a hospital
X-ray department. Naturally a photographic hobby was conducive to the kind of work that I was doing. The Agifold is a folding bellows camera with a 6cm x 6cm format affording 12 exposures on a 120 roll film. It has a focusing lens, a range of shutter speed settings as well as an adjustable iris diaphragm.
The Agifold is an interesting camera in many ways with two unusual features. Firstly it has a density step wedge exposure meter which consists of a wedge of ground glass calibrated with numbers along its length. You look through an eyepiece and the amount of light reaching the camera will affect the range of numbers that you can see. You then take the highest number that you can see and dial it onto a calculator mounted on the top of the camera which has been preset with the speed of the film that you are using. This then gives a read out of appropriate exposures in terms of shutter speed versus aperture. No moving parts to go wrong there then. The other feature is a rangefinder consisting of a prism and mirror which projects a split image into the viewfinder. When looking through the viewfinder you locate a vertical straight edge within the subject and this appears as two edges which you then bring together by rotating a calibrated wheel on the top of the camera. When the two images have become one you read off the distance from the calibrated wheel and transfer it onto the focusing ring on the lens. Pretty smart, eh?
With a reasonably well equipped darkroom at home I began to earn some money with my Agifold as well as taking in developing and printing for other staff members.
When the time came to move up a notch I bought a Weltaflex, an inexpensive twin lens reflex camera with a ground glass focusing screen fitted with a pop-up magnifier for greater accuracy in focusing. However it has no exposure measuring device so aperture and speed settings relied a lot on educated guesses and the guides that came with the film. Like the Agifold this took 12 exposures on a roll of 120 film and this film was advanced in the same way as a box camera, i.e. by bringing the next number into to view in the little red window on the back of the camera. This was also the case with the Agifold. For its cost this camera produced some surprisingly good results. The only problem with it is that the shutter action has a kick like a mule and the camera tends to recoil upwards during exposure. This often necessitated mounting the camera on a tripod and using a cable release.
The big break through in quality came when I bought a Yashicamat which is a Japanese copy of the famous Rolliecord twin lens reflex camera much used by professionals of the day. The 'Rollie' was considered the Rolls Royce of twin lens reflex cameras at that time and the Yashicamat was a pretty good copy of it at a fraction of the price. The film is advanced by winding a handle on the side which stops the film at the appropriate place for the next frame. Again it produces 12 negatives size 6cm x 6cm on a 120 roll film.
The next progression was onto a series of 35mm single lens reflex cameras. Wow, 36 exposures per cassette seemed like an everlasting supply unlike the present day when we can happily eat up that number of exposures in less than a minute with our Canon digital SLRs.
