F-1 Beams, Barn

'F-1 Beams' - 1977                                                                                                                                                              snake

'F-1 Barn' - 1977                                                                                                                                                                  snake

Canon F-1. My first 35 mm camera was a Canon F-1 with a 50mm FD1.4 lens. At the time it was Canon’s top-of-the-line camera and the last fully mechanical camera the company made. But the Canon F-1 was not how I got my start in photography. That distinction belongs to a Kodak Pocket Instamatic. So how did I make the leap?

As a junior in high school, I had my hands full with egg-head honors classes while also wrestling on the varsity team, so I decided to take photography as an ‘easy’ elective. My first assignment for the photography class was to shoot a roll of black and white film. All I could scrounge up was that Instamatic. Even so, my teacher really liked the shots I took with that little camera and on that encouragement, I decided to buy a 35mm camera. My friend (whose name I will kindly not mention) offered to sell me a brand new, ‘hot’ Canon F-1, with a price way too good to pass up. With the Canon in hand, my father took me into the city of Rochester, and then out to the countryside, so I could shoot a roll of 24 frames. The barn shots and Xerox Tower are the best shots edited from the roll.