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| May Fair Vintage Box Camera |
At almost 92 years old this box camera has to be the oldest in my small collection. It was my father's camera and it only ever went out with us on family holidays or days out, usually to the country or the seaside in North Wales. This strange little magic box would capture moments during our day, provided the sun was out and in the right position and we all kept perfectly still. This was back in the 1950s and early 60s, although my dad had used the camera for many years and I have the negatives and prints from the 1930s and 40s. As a child I suppose I never gave the picture-making much thought at the time in those heady summer days long gone, but now, this camera is precious for me.
I found the May Fair after sorting out the loft area during the re-roofing of our house. I wiped it down and cleaned up the lens and interior but then put it away for a while in the bottom of my wardrobe. More recently I've been posting on Twitter @GerrySimons and following many brilliant creative photographers on the platform. I tend to post square format black and white images from my digital cameras and iPhone. These have attracted the attention of film photographers and over time, their posts along with their work have inspired me to try using film once again, for the first time in over 40 years.
I sent for some 120mm HP5+ film from Analoguewonderland and loaded it into the May Fair, with some trepidation I may add. I suppose I was ready to go, not that I really knew what I was doing.
I took the May Fair, loaded with HP5+, along with an Olympus Trip 35 loaded with a roll of HP4 out on a photo-walk to my local park. The weather was overcast but I shot about half the roll of HP5+ and made a few additional photographs with the Trip35.
The Trip 35 is a joy to work with. Settings are straightforward and you just point and press the Shutter. The camera does almost all of the work. The May Fair is another story entirely. It does have two Watson-type finders and a pull-out wire frame finder, plus a slide out metal finder on the back. The tiny Watson-type finders are a little scratched and worn now and as the camera uses small mirrors to reflect the image to the finders, everything is reversed. Without bright sunlight I found accurate composition very difficult. But as with anything, more practice will undoubtably help.
I took a break at a coffee bar (see below) and the young waitress who brought out my drink thought the May Fair was wonderful. It was nice to see that an old vintage camera can be appreciated like that.
When I finish the rolls and get the results back, I'll post some of the photographs here. That is provided anything is worth looking at or writing about. Fingers crossed.
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| On the road with the Olympus Trip 35 and the May Fair |
A little background on the May Fair
“May Fair" was a cigarette brand, marketed by “Ardath”, and this camera was supplied in return for cigarette coupons. The May Fair is a metal box camera made by Houghton Butcher in England, c.1930. There was also a folding May Fair. It's surprising that this camera was a giveaway. The all metal construction gives it the feel of an expensive item.
It takes 6x9cm images on 120 film and is equipped with two Watson-type finders and a pull-out wire frame finder.
The controls are limited to a T/I selector for the shutter and two unlabelled apertures set by a slider on the top. The lens is fixed-focus. The body opens at the rear, and has a removable film spool carrier, which also holds the lens.
A supplementary portrait lens which can be stored in a side recess, behind a sprung door, on the left side of the camera but this lens is sadly missing from my model.