August 29, 2026

Still Life With Argus C3
Bozeman, Montana
2026

Both the camera and the flowers just happened to be sitting on the kitchen counter when the sun came up the other day.

The first 35mm camera I ever worked with was my Dad’s old Argus C3, which he bought in the 1940s, I think primarily to take with him on his stint in the Navy during WWII. This isn’t that specific camera as I gave it back to my Dad when I bought my first SLR camera. It disappeared somewhere from my parents’ house in the decades since, probably at a garage sale or something.

Later on I missed that mechanical beast (they are offered referred to as “the brick”) so eventually bought one off of eBay. Actually due to a real memory lapse on my part, I bought two of them maybe ten years apart. So yesterday I gave one of them to my friend Owen for his 9th birthday. He’s very curious about not only the camera but also the concept of film photography altogether. I think learning about that is going to be a fun project for him.