Fathers Day was a blue, blue early spring day: perfect for the beach – if, like me, you aren’t a fan of hot beach weather. Ocean Beach, Nelson, at the bottom of Glenelg River which practically flows past my home much further upriver, was hazy with seaspray, and scented with ozone.
For fun, I packed my TtV contraption, and hauled it the 300m over the dunes to the beach. I say “hauled”, not because the set-up is so heavy or cumbersome really, but because I’ve grown used to the lightweight portability of the Olympus. I wasn’t all that delighted with the results, but I did have fun. So did my mum.
My setup is composed of a bottom camera (Kodak Duaflex pseudo TLR) + a tube-like bag sewn from two neoprene lens bags, with a hole cut for the Duaflex to peer through + a cut-down soft drink bottle (inside the tube, to rest the top camera on to keep it at a useful distance from the bottom camera + a top camera (Pentax *ist DSLR). It looks like this:
The contraption is a bit wobbly, lacking rigidity in the middle, so takes both hands to keep things steady. A lot of TtV photographers make their rigs, but I like mine to be demountable. Taking photos involves looking in the viewfinder of your top camera (digital, in this case) through a darkened tunnel to the viewfinder of your bottom camera. You look a bit odd to passersby, because you wander around looking towards your feet, and they don’t know what you’re doing.
You can see a pretty picture of the Duaflex, and read more about this process, in my earlier post.
Also, there was a little shooting-on-the fly. Of course.
First, heading south (towards Wando Vale):
Then coming home:
At which point, My Good Man yelled at me for multitasking, and I put the camera away.
precious ruthless captures 