19 Comments
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Rishabh Khaneja's avatar

Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful story, Ralph. The photographs look absolutely lovely. Do you still often shoot with the Film Camera?

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Rishabh. Yes, I do shoot with the Spotmatic occasionally, though not as often as it deserves, perhaps. As it happens, I have roll going through it the moment.

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Benjamin Fargen's avatar

Love this! Great story and Images. I knabbed an exact black Spotmatic like this a few years back for $25 due to an advanced lever problem I fixed in minutes. It has brought me more joy than a $25 camera ever should!

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Thank you very much, Ben. Sounds like that was $25 very well spent!

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Benjamin Fargen's avatar

💯📷

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Dan Schneider's avatar

Wonderful story, Ralph! I have my mother’s old camera that she used to take photos of my sister and me when we were children, but as it’s a fully electronic Minolta Maxxum 7000, I’m less optimistic about its longevity than my own.

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Dan! Well, there's always hope the Minolta will do better than we imagine 🤞😉

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Dan Schneider's avatar

As long as I don’t do worse than I imagine…haha

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Here's 🤞🤞to that! 😎

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Amanda Claire Vesty's avatar

Sweet story and every time you use or look at the photos you took it is retold 🙂🙏🏻

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Amanda, your words are much appreciated 🙂

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Razlyn Lysaught's avatar

Oh how I love this!!! What a beautiful tribute. And that photo of your mum and dad is so lovely!! The colors in that photo are just delightful.

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Thank you very much, Razlyn, much appreciated. Sadly the whole set of transparencies that the pic of my parents is in has suffered a substantial colour shift towards mauve/blue. It took a bit of fiddling to get the colour back to how it was.

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Razlyn Lysaught's avatar

I bet! I used to work in a film lab a couple years back and know what a time investment that process is!

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Ralph Turner's avatar

I can imagine. I'm slowly working my way through hundreds of old colour and b+w negatives from my wife's side of the family, some of which haven't fared so well. Quite a challege.

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Susanne Helmert's avatar

Lovely story and some wonderful photographs!

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Susanne. I have a few other old cameras with personal connections to family and friends, but none quite so much 'history' as this one.

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Alicia Paley's avatar

What a lovely tribute to your brother and father. I’m sure every time you use this treasured heirloom you think of them. I think it makes the photos you take with Spotty all the more precious.

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Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Alicia.

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