Home Ground #21
Bozeman, Montana
2024
My first serious photography work in the late 1960s was done using my father’s Argus C3 35mm rangefinder camera. I don’t know what happened to his old camera, but when I say this one for sale for a few bucks several decades later I bought it for old times’ sake. This one was in noticeably worse cosmetic condition than my father’s, but then it was quite a bit older by the time I acquired it.
I have my father’s old cameras – a Brownie SIX-20, Polaroid 220 and a German camera Leidolf Wetzlar (guessing he got it when he was there during the war) – it is complete with the case my siblings and I gave him for Father’s Day one year and the “cheat sheet” pinned into the case which I always remember him referring to when he was trying to set the exposures. I’ve never attempted to use any of these cameras but thanks so much for jogging my memory.
I’ve never heard of a Leidolf Wetzler camera before but then I’m not well versed in the camera world of bygone era’s. But I looked them up and their rangefinder cameras look like a somewhat more sophisticated version of my dad’s Argus C3 which were manufactured in the same time period. Glad I could jog your memory.