civilized ku # 2849 ~ recent acquisitions

Polaroid cheese slicer, Weston light meter, photo booth pictures, and rubber ants • click to embiggenDuring my recent 1600 mile (approx.) Thanksgiving week journey, I managed to snag a few momento itinerum along the way. The most useful item is a vintage Weston Master III Universal Exposure Meter (circa mid-1950s) acquired at a vintage clothing store in Carlisle PA - home of the Army War College - during a trans-Pennsylvania lunch stop. Even though said item has given up the ghost, functioning light meter wise, I believe that it will serve my purpose very well.

To wit, over the years, my Olympus µ4/3 E-P1 thru E-P5 cameras have been often and repeatedly identified as film cameras. The identifiers are always strangers, primarily of the women variety, encountered in public places. This has occurred so frequently that I consider it reason enough to own and use these cameras, both for making pictures and for their ability to be chick magnets.

ASIDE Why more women than men (in the ratio of 20-1)? I have no idea other than to postulate that a camera or two hanging on one's body are often used as photographic fashion accessories. For most men, and for reasons which should be obvious, the more impressive and bigger the camera the better and perhaps this macho posturing is too aggressive an act for women to warm up to .... too much mano-a-mano mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude. On the other hand, perhaps the cute little Olympus cameras evince a gentler and warmer aura which is more attuned to female sensibilities. END OF ASIDE

In most instances, I believe that the cameras, at first glance, are thought to be film cameras because: 1) they look a lot like older rangefinder cameras, 2) the accessory optical viewfinder enhances this perception, 3) my lenses sport very traditional looking lens shades, and, 4) the cameras are obviously made of metal which is not coated with a black finish (black itself is an aggressive color - did you know that cars with all-black dashboards are driven much more aggressively than those with lighter shaded dashboards?).

For certain, the recognition of all of these visual camera characteristics implies, to some degree, a knowledge of older film cameras. One might think - stereotype alert - that men would be more attuned to these distinctive characteristics than women. The same could be written about age - one might think that older identifiers might be more attuned to these visual cues but my experience does not conform to that notion either. Women of all ages - my guess, from late teens to late middle age - have respond to the cameras in equal measure.

In any event, in order to significantly enhance the perception that my cameras are film cameras, which should correspondently also amp up their chick magnetism aura, I have acquired the Weston meter to wear dangling from my neck whenever I leave the house with my cameras (which is every time I leave the house).

I am not sure whether or not this will increase my encounters with female identifiers or in any way alter the ratio of m-f respondents. However, the experiment should be both interesting and, well .... interesting. All of which are undertaken for purely academic and cultural studies. After all, I am a very happily married picture maker.

FYI, the one item encountered but not acquired on the trip - though a monumental act of will power and an admonishment to the Cinemascapist to tackle me if I was sighted headed to the fan gear shop at the Penguin arena - was a Pittsburgh Penguin Pro Toaster. Here's hoping that Santa reads my blog.

In answer to John Linn's comment: as for the Polaroid Instant Cheese Slicer, I am certain we will be delighted by the fact that the cheese emerges from the slicer instantly ready to eat. Unlike with our other cheese slicers which require that our cheese slices be sent out to a cheese lab for further processing which is an endeavor that can take up to three days unless one goes to a one-hour cheese lab.

As for the rubber ants, who in their right mind doesn't want or need rubber ants?

Comments

[John Linn]

... and the instant cheese slicer?