It's taken me longer than I anticipated, but The Magic and Allure of Toy Cameras, Vol. 2 - 35mm, is now available from my Etsy store. At 40 pages including the covers, it's chock full of information and images of 35mm toy cameras, from the very first "35mm" the Kodak 00 Cartridge Premo, to the latest Reto Ultra Wide and Slim. You can purchase The Magic and Allure of Toy Cameras, Vol. 2 - 35mm at my Etsy store.
First of all, let me tell you about my journey with 35mm toy cameras. Starting in 2000, when I was really becoming a student of photography - not in the literal sense as a student, but as someone serious about learning all that I could about photography, toy cameras were not on my mind as a creative tool. I had grown up with the Kodak Instamatic as the camera that was close at hand, and when I got my first 35mm SLR, an Exakta Exa 1a in 1973, it was my every-day camera for a number of years. My experience with "toy cameras" didn't really happen until the early 2000s, and when I started playing around with them, I found them to be fun adjuncts to the more serious Nikons and my Rollei TLR, and as I shot more with the Holga and other crappy cameras, I saw how they could become a real asset to anyone shooting film that wanted something out of the ordinary. Over the years, I have always had my share of toy cameras, and when I published the third issue of Monochrome Mania that featured 120/620 toy cameras, I knew that a follow-up with 35mm cameras had to be done. It turned out to be not as simple as I thought it would because there are so many more cameras, and I also needed to hunt down and purchase certain models that I knew had to be covered if I were to do a more complete guide to them.
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| some sample pages from MM #7. |
So, after quite a few more months, I had written a large part of the text, but it really wasn't until late in 2021 that the issue really started coming together. Some days. I would find myself down the Google rabbit hole pursuing information on cameras that just a decade ago, were brand-new, and now very hard to find. I also knew that there was no way that I could test them all in time for the this issue, nor could I actually get my hands on every single model. My goal here is to give the reader a good overview of the history of these cameras, with examples of the many types that have been available. One could spend many years tracking down every example of a 35mm toy camera, and I'll leave that for some other soul. I think that you will certainly get a lot from this issue, and I hope that I sell them all in a short time!
Due to the full-color printing and the price increases in the publishing industry and postal rates, I have raised the price of MM #7 to $12 + $3 US shipping. Friends tell me that I am underpricing this issue and should sell it for twice the price. However, I want to keep it affordable for everyone so long as I cover my expenses and make a small profit. The price certainly doesn't include the money I spent in obtaining cameras to test and photograph. I'll recoup those expenses by selling many of these cameras in my Etsy store, so after reading this issue, be sure to check what I have on Etsy in a few weeks, as I start including some of the cameras in the zine in my Etsy offerings.
I look forward to hearing from the readers what they think of this latest issue!
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| This image |
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| shot with this camera. |
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