Bridge to Nowhere

Posted by Mike Cash (Kiryu, Japan) on 16 June 2007 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

Welcome to the sort of idiocy one can often encounter with Japanese public works projects. Here we have a bridge to nowhere....complete with guard rails. There is no road on the other side, nor anything even remotely resembling a road.

This is the first image from yet another "new" camera. (Still have two more I haven't posted from yet). This was taken with a 1946 Kodak 35 RF and shot on Kodak TMAX black and white film. The Kodak 35 RF has to be one of the ugliest and most difficult to use cameras ever invented, yet it had a production run from 1941 - 1951.

Focusing is done by looking through a hole so tiny that if no one pointed it out, you'd probably never know it was there. What looks like a shutter button is not a shutter button, but a release that has to be pressed before you can wind the film. The camera splits in two for loading, and the take-up spool is damned near impossible to get the film leader into. Rewinding the film is only slightly less of a hassle. I thought I would never find the shutter release on the thing.

Still, though, the camera has a certain charm and I have enjoyed using it so far. I believe it is going to turn in some respectable quality photos.

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