Photograph - Curtis Daily - 10 March 2025

Gary Cullen - 28 November 2024

The more I survive into this 21st century the more I am amazed of situations that have persisted (continued?) since I was very young.

The camera in this scan is an East German Pentacon-F (the nomenclature on the bottom plate of the camera reads – Russian occupied Germany) I purchased in 1958 from Olden Cameras in New York for $100. I was at the time a boarder in a Roman Catholic high school in Austin called St. Edwards. At the time popular cameras were rangefinders and these SLRs were the new kids on the block.

I had saved for the purchase from a job cleaning and catching mice at Brother Edwin Reggio CSC’s band room. I played the alto saxophone for the school band and jazz band.

With this camera, and a used Asahi Pentax S-3, I made good money in the early 1970s in Mexico City until we left for Vancouver in 1975. I photographed wealthy Mexican families using Kodak Tri-X and processing the film and printing in my little darkroom in Arboledas, Estado de México. Many years later when I have returned to Mexico City my former clients have shown me my work and I can proudly reveal that they are pristine and not yellow with age.

As soon as we left Mexico, and on our way here, I purchased a couple of better cameras in Los Angeles. The Pentacon-F became a decorative fixture in my oficina.

Every once in a while I would test the shutter. To my shock about 3 months ago the shutter was not operational.

My philosophy is that since I bought these cameras when they worked, they should still work when I leave for my soon to come oblivion.

My friend Gary Cullen (owner of a magical 1947 Tatra) used to have a business called Brighouse Camera Repair. He is now retired. He offered to fix it. What did he do?

Incredibly, he has black shutter cloth, so he cut some and made a new shutter for the camera.

When my Portland friend, Curtis Daily visited me last week (he left yesterday), we decided to shoot some pinhole photographs with my Mamiya RB 67. We also shot portraits with the Pentacon of each other posing with Pancho el Esqueleto using Kodak Ektachrome which is not only being sold in Vancouver but it is processed at The Lab. And of course that new shutter works perfectly.

In my current technique of using my Epson V700 scanner as a tabletop camera, this image satisfies me and I remember fondly how the Pentacon-F, purchased with funds I earned from working for Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. somehow predetermined that someday I would become a photographer.