every camera i own: the gevaert rex junior

This week's camera with a kitty is a little late, owing to the usual film problems as well as a few other pieces that took priority. You can read my recent reviews of Running Drill at Transformer Gallery, and the Washington Shakespeare Company's production of Richard Foreman's Hotel Fuck, on the DCist.

The Rex Junior Gevaert is a bakelite toy camera with a collapsible lens that twists out for shooting and twists back in for compactness. It's similar in design to the German Pouva Start, although the Argentinian Junior began its commercial life in 1950, the year before the Pouva debuted.

The Rex Gevaert uses 620 film.  I bought it at the Feria de San Telmo in Buenos Aires, one of the world's great flea markets, and used the camera just once since then.




I don't remember having to tape up the frame window for that initial roll, which I shot in the cold light of winter. I really need to start taping these babies up, especially in summer heat. You can see the backing paper text cleanly burned through to the image, shot in New York last weekend.



Nuts.