Somewhere I have it – a photo that I snapped in 1978. The Louvre. The room housing Mona Lisa. She made an impressive image from the 16th century. No cameras, just Leonardo da Vinci, sketches and paint. The real prize on film for my memories, however, was on the adjacent wall. I fell in among the celebrants in Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana. I found that paintings and photos alike can present an inclusive encounter with the subjects.

I loved film photography from a young age. Bothering my parents to get to shoot family snapshots, and sometimes I was actually allowed, when Dad had his latest 35 mm SLR, or even the Polaroid instant camera. I had seen my dad’s Voigtlander Vito II and his Micro 16 “spy camera” he had bought as a young soldier during military service. Recognizing my interest, he searched and found an affordable, used Pentax 35 mm camera that lasted me years. I became a bona fide, limited edition camera nerd, even frequenting the camera store to dream of accessorizing.

1984. Fresh out of Lackland Air Force Base, and on new assignment for Tech School at Rantoul Air Force base to be a Jet Engine Mechanic. My uncommitted pay leaked a little to get a handy Nikon FG 20. This was a low-end SLR that I felt could be abused a little in all weather, until I got myself an upgrade. I was pleased with the camera, taking it with me for years, with prints and slides produced. Additional enjoyment of the process came in developing the film on my own, when I could.

2023. Cell phone cameras are admittedly impressive, especially since we didn’t have them 30 years ago. Also, there is joy shared as my wife revisits her love of simple arts using her new Canon DSLR camera. With digital, you can instantly determine whether you hit or missed your target of subject x lighting x focus with the miniaturized screens. Missing the “hunt” and developing my own film, I wanted back in. My hands have never even held the high-end rangefinders and their precisely engineered lenses, as I dreamed of exotic shooting opportunities. Rather, my prize is the rediscovered Vito II. That old film camera. Will it work?

Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander, I’m learning, were (are?) leading photographic engineering companies for decades, and easily more than a century each. My Baby Boomer camera here has a pleated leather bellows lens of all things, which is concealed when the cover is closed. Rangefinder methods include – well – finding the range in distance between your camera and your subject. This is more of a guess with this class of camera, not having an actual range finder (just a small viewfinder) built in. No light meter is included, so that’s an add-on, if I want to do more than guesstimate available illumination. (I have one here somewhere, but “there’s an app for that”) A leaf shutter! What a still smooth functioning work of engineering.

In these blogs and videos, we’ll include shots from the new digital age of a DSLR, and also from old school rangefinder captures of Vito II. We hope you’ll find an invitation to encounter the landscapes, or critters, or quilts, or people, or even shapes and patterns as light plays in front of the lenses. Go and find thrills in capturing your own and sharing.