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January 2017's photo was taken with a Voigtländer Bessa II, manufactured between 1950 and 1956. The scene (top) is Hanglip forest and below is the picturesque Bluegumspoort.

Heritage calendar project causes lots of excitement

Date: 25 November 2016 By: Anton van Zyl

The Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror’s annual calendar project caused a lot of excitement this year. Unlike previous years, where readers could enter any picture taken in the Soutpansberg area, the entries were limited this year to photos taken with vintage cameras.

The prerequisite that the photos must be taken with cameras 50 years or older caught a lot of the region’s amateur photographers by surprise. Most have discarded their old film cameras, only using the latest digital offerings. The invitation was thus extended to photographers to make use of the cameras in the newspaper’s vintage camera collection. Some made use of the offer, but it was mostly left to the newspaper’s own photographers to try and learn some new (old) skills.

The photographers who took part in the project all agreed that it is a completely different ballgame. The older generation of cameras does not have through-the-lens viewing or focusing and it is quite a challenge to be able to compose a frame without knowing exactly what will be captured on film. No immediate “feedback” is available and you only know whether you have successfully captured an image or not once the film is developed.

The final product, however, surprised everyone and some of the “cheaper” cameras showed their mettle against the “glamourous” models. Wouter Veldman from Musina used a 1955 Traveller TLR to capture scenes near the Limpopo River. This is a rather plastic twin-lens reflex camera that was mass produced in Hong Kong. At over 60 years of age, the camera can still produce lovely calendar pics.

The oldest camera used, was a 1926 Agfa Standard and the youngest a Minolta SRT101 dating from 1966. The calendar also includes photos taken with a Kodak No 2 Brownie (1929), a Zeiss Ikon Box-Tengor (1934) and two Voigtländer Bessas (1936 and 1950).

When selecting the photos to be used for the calendar, the newspaper staff tried to incorporate as many of the cameras used as possible. The theme was “heritage” and the project was an effort to blend old technology with current scenes.

The calendar is about to be printed and should be available in two weeks’ time. As has become customary, the calendar will be distributed to the newspaper’s clients, but a couple of dozen will be for sale at the newspaper’s office. The proceeds of the sale of the calendars will go towards various charity organisations.

 
 
 

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Anton van Zyl

Anton van Zyl has been with the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror since 1990. He graduated from the Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg) and obtained a BA Communications degree. He is a founder member of the Association of Independent Publishers.

 
 

More photos... 

Wouter Veldman used a 1955 Traveller TLR to capture these images used to brighten up June 2017.

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