Juno beach, Courseulles sur Mer, Normandy, by Andrew Dawson(click on either image to see it larger)
"I started out photography 'proper' with a battered Zenit EM from eBay (complete with fuzzy, glue-striped pentaprism and musty smell), so I guess it was inevitable I would end up with another Russian camera to show me the way into medium format...at least this one looked like a Hasselblad though!
"The Salyut was a bit of a tricky beast; it arrived DOA, which is never a very good sign, but I decided to persevere and sure enough, second time around it arrived in (not quite) full working order, which was obviously a vast improvement. Full of optimism for my shiny new medium format camera, I took it on its first trip out where it promptly returned to form, the strap eyelets falling out of the body before I had even taken a shot. Not to be deterred from its mission to distance itself from its haughty Swedish cousin, it made noises like it was breaking every time I wound the shutter (though I was later told this was quite normal), scratched my film if I didn't load it just right and now and again reverted to its 'originally shipped' role and played dead.
"That said, when it was working it was an absolute joy and on that trip and on subsequent outings I've taken some of my best photographs with it; I've even managed to perfect the reassuring smile which you give to those people clambering out of the nearest 'cover' thanks to the rifle-crack shutter. Good stuff!
"The photograph above is a shot I took on the Salyut's first trip out."
Andrew Dawson
Staffordshire, U.K.
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1 comments:
I like the little black shape the woman with the buggy makes with the more distant figure, echoing the white breaking wave.
There's nothing quite like fighting a moody camera into (occasional) co-operation, is there? The camera I *would* have used for this game was my Koni Omega (with its combat-ready body apparently cast in lead) but, stupidly, I sold it. It's the only camera I know that uses a pump action film advance -- now that really does have people scurrying for cover.
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