Juvenilia - Two Photos from the Dark Ages

[Bertie McBoatface]

I rediscovered these two old photos today in the bottom of a biscuit tin - where else?

 

 

I was a teenager when I did this one. It's the Tamiya Flakvierling onna 'alf track with some snow. I mads a silhouette of a diving aircraft and stuck it on the window for a target but that photo hasn't turned up yet and this is just a routine close up taken on film and developed by Boots the Chemist. I've photographed that old photo for your amusement tonight.

 

 

This is the Tamiya (what else was there?) Bren Gun Carrier with a 17 pounder AT gun on tow. The officer is checking the time and calling "Move out lads!" as the crew mount up for action. Looking back nearly 50 years, I'm still proud of these, my first ever dioramas.

 

I hope you like them too.

 

[Maddoxx77]

At first glance these photo's look like stills from a movie. I like the action packed perspective. 

👍👍👍

[Bertie McBoatface]

11 minutes ago, Maddoxx77 said:

At first glance these photo's look like stills from a movie. I like the action packed perspective. 

👍👍👍

 

The less detail that's on the picture the better? Sometimes. Maybe.

[Maddoxx77]

It's the illusion of movement in a photo.

[Bertie McBoatface]

4 minutes ago, Maddoxx77 said:

It's the illusion of movement in a photo.

 

Yes, I see what you mean. A lot of the moving parts are blurred. Just by coincidence but it works.

[Autle]

He shots, he scores. Brilliant work as always and yet another smile on my face.

[IanC]

I like the first one especially. Very atmospheric! Wish I still had photos of my dioramas from that time...

[Bertie McBoatface]

6 minutes ago, IanC said:

I like the first one especially. Very atmospheric! Wish I still had photos of my dioramas from that time...

Thanks. I must sort through the biscuit tin one day for any others. 
 

The light is coming from my old bedroom window straight towards the camera. Those vague shapes are council houses, remember those? 😀

[Vince1159]

I love the first one it's almost as though they're very close to a searchlight,nice job...

[Bertie McBoatface]

4 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

I love the first one it's almost as though they're very close to a searchlight,nice job...

Interesting interpretation. I see it as sun breaking through mist, one morning in Stalingrad. 

[Model Mate]

you're clearly cheating - the dates are on the photos! ...just yesterday!

 

I've sadly (or maybe fortunately) not got much in the way of nostalgia pictures of my teenage projects, so it's good to see yours from the days when Tamiya was the (usually unaffordable) dream most of the time. My pocket money would only generally stretch to their smaller kits, although the Tiger was always relatively cheap for such a hunk of plastic, so I did a couple of them at least.

[Bertie McBoatface]

24 minutes ago, Model Mate said:

you're clearly cheating - the dates are on the photos! ...just yesterday!

 

I've sadly (or maybe fortunately) not got much in the way of nostalgia pictures of my teenage projects, so it's good to see yours from the days when Tamiya was the (usually unaffordable) dream most of the time. My pocket money would only generally stretch to their smaller kits, although the Tiger was always relatively cheap for such a hunk of plastic, so I did a couple of them at least.

 

Ah but I was earning my own money then, not much of it, but my own!

[Troy Smith]

16 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

with a 17 pounder AT gun on tow.

That's a 6 pdr.    AFAIK Tamiya never did a 17pdr.    

 

Very creative photography.  Reminds me of image you would see that had been posted in to Military Modelling 'back then' as well.  

 

I recall doing some photo with a 110 camera using a desk lamp, the low light improved the end result, but did give that yellow cast of a tungsten bulb on daylight film. .   I don't know if those pics survive, they are not where other archive ones are.   

 

Funnily enough when I finally bought a camera in the mid 1990's (a 1965  Nikkormat, lovely solid manual thing)  one of first things I tried out on was the only aeroplane I had completed in many years.  

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2011/11/troy-smiths-tamiya-148th-hayate.html

 

During my film era I found a undeveloped 110 film from 1979,  I'd got friendly with the development place in town, and took a punt, some even came out...  

 

5 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I must sort through the biscuit tin one day for any others. 

That would be fascinating,  It's great seeing how models and their photography have evolved,  and the ability to share those images as well.

 

[Vince1159]

7 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Interesting interpretation. I see it as sun breaking through mist, one morning in Stalingrad. 

It reminds me of film i've seen with a gun crew in Berlin during an air raid that's caught in light...

[Bertie McBoatface]

3 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

That's a 6 pdr.    AFAIK Tamiya never did a 17pdr.    

 

That's right - slip of the memory.

3 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Very creative photography.  Reminds me of image you would see that had been posted in to Military Modelling 'back then' as well. 

 

Thanks. Yes, I read that magazine and would have been following the fashions of the time, then as now.

(It was easier to do a good model in the 70s before washes, modulation, pre-shading and all that stuff became fashionable (and then mandatory).0

 

9 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I must sort through the biscuit tin one day for any others. 

 

That was a stupid idea from an old bloke already feeling fed up with life, the universe and everything. After reviewing my life in pictures I'm just about ready to fall on my craft knife, not having any swords handy. 😩

 

I found no more armour pics from the way way back, just some unremarkable aircraft ones which aren't worth exhuming for public viewing. 

 

[Vince1159]

22 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

just some unremarkable aircraft ones which aren't worth exhuming for public viewing. 

 

Why not i'd like to see them...

[Bertie McBoatface]

30 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

Why not i'd like to see them...

 

A one-off and brief display of one's past glories is just about permissible but showing my boring old tat by the yard would be like inflicting my holiday snaps on the world  - unforgivable! 😱

[noelh]

26 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

A one-off and brief display of one's past glories is just about permissible but showing my boring old tat by the yard would be like inflicting my holiday snaps on the world  - unforgivable! 😱

Absolutely. I recently went through my photo collection. Specifically my aircraft and airshow photos. Half them went straight into the bin. The rest  are hardly worth keeping except for  reference. 

 

Your  pictures remind me fondly of my first foray into modelling photography. Several pictures of an M4A3E8 Sherman advancing along a jungle track during the little known battle of Greenhills. Actually the Tamiya kit in the potato patch, taken around 1974 with my sister's Kodak Instamatic. Very  realistic I thought.😁

 

Just like your photos only I couldn't afford  colour film so they were in black and white.

 

I think your photos  are great. But I  always  wish I'd  taken  more photos at the time.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by noelh

[Bertie McBoatface]

9 minutes ago, noelh said:

Absolutely. I recently went through my photo collection. Specifically my aircraft and airshow photos. Half them went straight into the bin. The rest  are hardly worth keeping except for  reference. 

 

There's a saying in show business, "You should always leave them wanting more."

 

I'm glad that I have those old photos. They trigger memories not only of the build, but of where I was when I built them and what else was happening at the time.

[Pete Robin]

Thanks for sharing Bertie. I think the "fun" part of the old cameras and film was the anticipation of what might turn up on the prints. In my case it was usually out of focus, badly composed and using the wrong F stop. Come to think of it, I'm not much better with the New technology.

Regards

Pete

[Bertie McBoatface]

11 minutes ago, Pete Robin said:

Thanks for sharing Bertie. I think the "fun" part of the old cameras and film was the anticipation of what might turn up on the prints. In my case it was usually out of focus, badly composed and using the wrong F stop. Come to think of it, I'm not much better with the New technology.

Regards

Pete

 

My 36 shot films would have a chrismas tree at each end and a summer holiday in the middle. Often I'd forger what was on them completely. One time I gave a film to my mum to take to the chemists for developing. She gave me 'the look' when she handed me the prints and my blood ran cold when I recalled some of the debauchery of that particular year!!!!! 😱

[Peter2]

Old cameras have a fascination in themselves. While I was browsing in a charity shop yesterday, I overheard a customer asking to look inside a 1970s (or 1980s) camera they had on display. But the person who knew how to open up the camera was out of the shop. So I had to poke my nose in - I mean, offer to help - and after a few minutes I realised the back of the camera didn't hinge open: I remembered that some cameras used to slide open. Then I was able to open it so he and the shop assistant could look inside. I noticed the plastic spool that should be inside so as to wind on the film was missing (of course, such parts fall out easily and get lost) but that part should be easy to find somewhere. I reminded the customer it needed roll type film but he said he knew a shop that sells those. I thought the camera might use the harder-to-find 110 or even the older 620 type film, then I realised it probably used 35mm which is generally available, isn't it?