Happy Birthday Pentakkusu! I have enjoyed photography since my Auntie Maureen and Uncle Roger bought me a little 110 film camera for my birthday when I was a kid. I later wanted to study photography at A Level, but never had the opportunity, but did get the chance to do a module in black & white film photography at University, which is where I learned the basics of using cameras and developing negatives.

My dad bought me my first film SLR from Jessops in the year 2000 – a Pentax ME Super, and it is the camera I still use most to this day. I love that little dude. I tend to use it with a massive 200mm lens, given to me as a gift from Roger and Maureen, who have always encouraged this side of my creative life! Thanks guys!

Anyway, Pentax turns 100 today, on 27 November 2019, and here are some old shots I have taken over the years with my ME Super. God bless her and all who are exposed to her.

Unfortunately my Epson negative scanner isn’t working and I’ve wasted many long hours trying to sort out the technical issues. So instead I bought a cheap neg scanner so I could get this post done. Sadly, the quality from it is absolutely appalling and with almost no ability to change any of the settings.

Having said that, I kind of love the quality that it lends to the pictures. Some of them have picked up strange colour casts, most of them have completely lost any detail in the shadows and highlights, and sharpness has gone out of the window.

However, as my photographic skills are so bad, I am delighted that the quality presents a new dimension. I feel like many of the images have a flat, artificial quality, as if they are photocopies of very old and damaged prints, or as if they are degraded images of film sets, or stills from documentaries filmed in the 1970s, and all of this really speaks to my love of reflecting imagined and internal worlds.

Anyway, you can make your own mind up: