Father, Son and a Texas Star – A One Shot Story

After moving to Austin Texas in 2018 from Toronto Canada, I was eager to get out and shoot some film.

I had come back to shooting film again from a decade or so of pray and spray with various digital cameras (don’t get me wrong I still use digital cameras as well as my phone camera). In 2003 I had purchase a Minox B camera off eBay, and some film from B&H Photo when they were still selling it, and it was more because it was the James Bond camera than anything else. As time went on I begans purchasing more cameras and using them more. At the time I had a Canon 5MP digital camera and was having fun with it, while tinkering with film again.

Settling back in to film was weird after digital, the instantaneous gratification and endorphin release from seeing the picture you just took in just moments. It was a much bigger adjustment than I thought it was going to be. Also gone are the days of the drive up “Fotomat” kiosks with their ‘one week prints, and a free roll of film” and “Japan Camera 1 Hour Photos”, I’m 60, and had decades of less than serious film photography under my belt. I had become a “snapshot”, sort of photographer. No portraiture, no landscapes, just snapshots of friends, family and various life events.

Breaking back into film came with a steep learning curve as my previous film cameras were either simple toy style (Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, Kodak Duaflex III from my Dad at the age of 8 or 9), or point and shoot (preloaded disposable), or my Minolta AF2. I did inherit my uncle’s 35mm Practica SLR, which I never got the hang of. I used it in auto mode from what I remember about it, all I had to do was to line up the needle match light meter and hit the shutter and wind to the next frame. At the time I just wanted to ‘take a picture’ and was blissfiully unaware of things like depth of field, brightness, contrast and the like. I have sinced learn about those things and more and I’m always trying to learn new aspects of photography. This is all just to say that I had never considered myself a “Real Photographer”.

The camera I used for this photo, is a used, new to me Canon A1 with the standard bayonet mount 50mm, f1.8 lens. This is my absolute favorite 35mm film camera because of it’s versatility in different modes, from full manual, through apeture and shutter priorities, to program and to full auto. A great camera from Canon, developed for the new pro-sumer market evolving throughout the photography world of the day.

The film was Kodak TMAX 100 shot and developed at ASA100 in Rodinal, with Patterson tank, water rinse, Ilford fixer, and Kodak rinse agent. For anyone who is asking about using a stop bath, I do not. While in 9TH grade I took a photography elective and the teacher said we couldn’t use the stop bath because in his words “a proper rinse after developing followed by the fixer would work the same without ill effect.”

On this particular Saturday, I had been driving around Austin taking pictures of the city and street-scapes. Some of the older architecture in the city. I am still fiddling with street photos, but none seemed to pressent themselves that day.This eventually lead me to the Texas Capital grounds.The 22 acre (8.9 hectares) grounds is home to the main Capital building, the Supreme Court of Texas, the Govenors Office and other buildings. The buildings are surrounded by various statuary and monuments depicting Texans and Texas history. A lot of bronze and granite on this site. Working my way around the area I snapped photos and chit-chatted to several people curious about my old tech. Even ran into an older gentleman who flatout said “ you stole my camera”, and relating the story of his old canon A1 from decades past. He had been a professional photographer and his A1 was his back up and cadid unit for weddings. His current camera was a Nikon digital but he had left it at home this day.

At the north side of the main capital building lies the capital Open-Air Rotunda. This rotunda is visually the same as the main Capital dome Rotunda, and the same diameter at 60 feet (18.25 meters), except in reverse. This view goes down from ground level, a pit if you will. At the center a large Texas star dominates it’s interior. I had looked over the rail from above and saw only the Texas star made from granite, I didn’t think very much of it at the time so I walked away to go photograph some monuments near by.

About 10 minutes later with only a couple more shots left on my roll, I peered down into the rotunda, a man and his son were on the star, my thought at the time was at least this will bring some scale to this snapshot. Took my picture and headed back to where I had parked my car snapping the last couple shots on the way.

I took the film home, got out my changing bag and developed the roll per the massive dev app. I scanned the film on my Epson V600 Perfection scanner. After scanning them I sent them to my wife’s phone as she has an eye for this sort of thing. She has been an excellent critic for me since coming back to film. I remember her saying “Did you take this one?”. “Yes”, I said. She fawned over my composition and subject. Weirdly at the time it was just another snapshot to me.

So, this is my photo of a father and son enjoying a wonderous moment with a tiny lizard found in the rotunda.

Share this post: