A Flock of Seagull

Well, we have a project due in photo II tomorrow, my interpretation of perception vs. reality, and I'm really bummed out.

This class is all film, no digital. fine, I've worked extensively with film, and I'm not too shabby at black and white printing (helps to have operated my own custom darkroom services for a few years).

So, I'm currently without a film camera because I went digital a number of years ago, and my only remaining film camera, a Yaschicamat 124M developed alzheimers or something. Not to worry, the school let me check out one of their 120 Seagull TLR's. I felt pretty comfortable with it, as it's a Chinese knockoff of the Yaschicamat series. I mean you could easily mistake one for the other if you didn't look too closely.

So I get the background setup, hook up the old Novatron powerpack and turn it on... this is where the nightmare begins. It seems that this Seagull (which I've never used before) is cheaper than I initially thought. There was some kind of short in the grounding circuit, and I think I've got it resolved. Shoot for two hours, burn thru 5 rolls of film.

So I get to the lab today, and developed the first two rolls... they were friggin blank. not even a specular highlight. Seems the shutter sync was off by about a quarter second... just enough to prevent exposure, and not be noticeable.

I bought a good used Bronica today. Wonder if the school will pay the bill I sent them for the film?