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| Rosemary, Hilary (left) and Alexandra |
Snapshots in Spanish are called instantáneas. When we were living in Mexico in the late 60s I took many of these with my two SLRs, an 1958 Pentacon-F and a 1962 Asahi Pentax S-3. Most of them did not see the light of day as I may have been lazy about printing everything in my home darkroom. These three were Kodak Tri-X.
Now with lots of time in my hands I have been looking at these Mexican negatives with a device called an Agfa Loupe. I found these three taken somewhere in Mexico City as the bell has the writing Nuestra Señora de Covadonga – México DF. I think they are cute. I am not sure if Rosemary is wearing bellbottoms. In Spanish, had they been, they would have been called pantalones acampanados. Since the root of the word is campo which means the prairie it is close to the verb to camp out –acampanar.
I marvel and I am so glad that when I processed m b+w film I washed and washed it so that it would be archival. These negatives are perfect. By the time we were about to leave Mexico City in 1975 to drive to Vancouver I was dunking my negatives and prints in Kodak Selenium Toner. This product made them archival. Unfortunately it was a known carcinogen. I used the toner until I closes my poorly unventilated darkroom in Kerrisdale 8 years ago. I guess I am living on borrowed time.