I was cruising through the cranberry bogs, mist hanging low over their yet-to-open blossoms. I noticed the bees weren’t on the bogs yet. I’d also noticed a garage sale sign – my reason for this detour.
I parked in front of the little farmhouse and moseyed up the driveway, hands stuffed into the pockets of my jeans. A camera bag just outside the warehouse caught my eye. A Pentax K1000 system. In the 70s and up to the 1990s, the K1000 was the gold standard of entry level SLR cameras. A true classic, in its own rite. I have a K1000 already – sitting on the shelf between a Spotmatic and a Yashica Minister-D. I will definitely take a pass on this one as I don’t need another.
“Will you take $40?” I heard myself ask.
Of course it came home with me.
One time, I went to Africa and I took a Pentax K1000 with me.
It was 1988. A friend and I had met someone from Zimbabwe and we decided to go visit her.
Back then, it wasn’t easy to book travel to countries like Zimbabwe. Our flight took us through London and Nairobi. Other than about 10,000 trips to Canada, at this point, I hadn’t been outside of the U.S.
Now, with a more seasoned eye, this yard sale camera has taken me back in time to that trip ; I was in my 20s and I had this idea of the “ugly American”. I think I considered every other American tourist ugly – but not me.
Here’s some dumbshit stuff I did:
In Kenya, I tipped like a guilt-ridden, middle class American girl, ruining the economy of every little village I passed through.
Kodachrome, Ektachrome. I’d packed the film in lead bags and requested a hand check at each security check point. Though my request was denied only a few times, it was enough to make a difference. Some rolls didn’t fair too well. I’m sure the heat didn’t help.
I’ll admit it. I’m a dork. I still use lens cleaning papers. Africa challenged my lens cleaning skills.
A smattering of vintage filters and filter adapters.
Next up, from the time capsule bag; the obligatory aftermarket zoom lens. I don’t remember what zoom lens I had. It was Pentax though – and smallish. The following images were taken using that Pentax zoom. Kenya, Africa. 1988.
As a long time subscriber to National Geographic magazine, I sported that K1000, knowing this was going to be my moment to shine. It may have been, as I don’t believe I’ve ever shot better.
Positioned around Harare, Zimbabwe, there were police (dressed more like military – maybe they were military?) standing behind berms. They’d stop talking and watch us as we walked past. Harare in the 80’s wasn’t exactly a tourist hotspot. We walked directly in front of them, screwing our eyeballs up at their Belgian FN FAL rifles – that “right arm of the free world”. Me, armed with my K1000, laughing with my travel partner about those yay-hoos. I wore my – not simply foreign privilege – American Privilege emblazoned across my forehead. Maybe it was twenty-something privilege? Most likely, both.
Next in the bag? An aftermarket 2x telelconverter. Tell me THIS isn’t tugging at your heartstrings? (I’m not crying, you are.)
The Vivitar Thyrister flash. Everyone lusted after a giant flash, with high guide numbers. I had a much smaller Sunpak – though I don’t remember the model. It fired using a hotshoe, but also had a little pc cord that handily stored itself inside the back of its body. I used that little sucker for years.
One day, we hailed a truck to get from Chakohwa to Chimanimani. A work truck that had an open bed, with boards around it. People were crammed in the bed- just standing. No seats. We had to grab the back and jump onboard very quickly. We thought we were there to catch a bus but I no longer believe that was the bus.
Later, we hitchhiked our way back. Two, 20-something white girls, standing on the side of the lonely highway just west of Zim’s border with Mozambique – our thumbs out. The second car picked us up – a government vehicle. The two men were astounded to learn we were Americans. “We’ve never seen such a thing out here!”. Then they spoke to each other in Ndebele. Norah, a Shona, stiffened. She jammed herself into the back of her seat and ground her teeth for the remainder of the ride. The men let us know we were somewhat of a spectacle on that highway. I don’t know what they said to each other, but they drove us straight to Norah’s front door. I had to set the record straight when one of them pronounced us (me and him) “darlings”.
I have no idea why this garage sale time capsule contained two 50mm lenses.
On a bus in Zimbabwe. We’d stopped at a restaurant. There was an adjoining bar with a cacophony of voices that spilled over into the dining area. On the pretext of going to the bathroom, I detoured to the bar to get a pack of smokes. The NOISE from that adjoining bar was all men’s voices. Hundreds of them. Boisterous. Storytelling in other languages. Raucous and beer fueled. I passed the bathroom, down the hallway, instinctively following the NOISE to that den of vice to buy cigarettes. I was under the – most likely false- impression that I had kept my cigarette smoking a secret from Norah. Everywhere posters warning of the perils of the illicit life portrayed “bad” girls, skirts hiked up thighs, lips parted, sexy eyes, smoldering cigarettes between callous fingers. The second I entered, the entire room went silent. No women. Just men in there. Every man stared. The white girl inquired of the bartender. “A pack of Camel filters?” By the time my purchase was finished, a trickle of conversation began. The second I stepped out the door? BOOM! The polyphony had resumed. I returned to our table after my trip to “the restroom”. Mona commented on the strange momentary silence in the back room. “Did you notice it?” I shrugged.
I love that this camera has a school’s phone number engraved on it. The area code changed in 1995, so it predates that.
Shortly after I returned from Africa, I traded that original K1000 for my first Nikon. I’d begun dating a guy who was a entomologist / photographer. He shot Nikon and convinced me my reputation depended on using the “right” gear. The Nikon F3- so very different from the K1000- it even smelled different. The K1000 smelled steely, while the Nikon, sealed in black, smelled more like enamel and …film? Once you get a Nikon (or Canon, or whatever) you begin to care about things like finish, you drool over titanium, you need brand name lenses with low numbered ƒstops, flash that synchs at an unreasonable shutter speed, a high-end tripod… etc.
I lost touch with my roots for a while.
Then – last weekend’s garage sale and the time capsule camera bag.
Back here, in a more normal place. In a more normal time. With me, at a more normal age…
I take the K1000 I already own down from its perch. It has a Minnesota driver’s license number engraved in not just one, but two places on the body. It’s also filthy.
An idea barely tickles the very tips of the cilia of my neuroreceptors before I know … I’m going to do it. My vision: this camera, enrobed in glass beads, an African scene plays out across the (what once was black and chrome) body. Maybe a baobab tree, branching out from the left with a thatched roof on a Chakohwa hut on the right? A scene of animals from the savanna across the back door? I know I will do it. I will bead this camera. What I don’t know is whether neuroreceptors even have cilia.
