Always read the manual – and actually understand the words!

Over the past few months I have wasted more camera film than I would like to admit to. This is the price of learning and having confidence that I know what I’m doing in the future. And despite some cock-ups I’m fairly confident that I know what I’m doing with the Kodak 66 and the Trip 35.

The Retinette, on the other hand has been laughing at me. So far, the success I have had has been by accident, which made me feel as if I knew what I was doing. This camera has been driving me up the wall and I was almost ready to give up with it. I’ve mangled film and loaded it incorrectly, but it looked fine until it became obvious that after taking loads of shots, something was wrong.

The 1b is a sterdy piece of German engineering from 60 years ago. This begs the question: “Is this almost bomb-proof example of German engineering wrong, or is this a case of finger trouble?” And there’s no need to answer this, isn’t there? And there’s no need to answer that question either!

I’m going to push on with the camera, because I have come to love it. It needs to be used and it needs to be understood. Just because it’s old, it should not be discarded. There’s so much more it can offer to the world and deserves to see the light of day and show what it can add to the world.

Old people deserve to be looked after too. But it’s not clear if they are useful or economically inactive and in the way. There’s no doubt that looking after them in their later years can be expensive – or would be if care workers were paid more – but they are our first hand connection with the past and should not be discarded as collaterol damage in the war against a virus.

It’s not just thngs and other people we need to look after. We need to not just look after ourselves, but after our future selves. No one wants to end up being the vulnerable old person in a home, being looked after by someone on minimum wage. And decision made by our governments and ourselve in the previous decades are building up in to problems now and in the future. With a bit of luck, all of this will become clear. But the problem is that the current Government won a landslide victory with an 80 seat majority on 29% of the electorate. So don’t get your hopes up.

If I’ve learnt anything, that’s not to give up.