Last weekend I visited another vintage rally, this time the Smallwood Vintage Rally in Cheshire. It was a little smaller than the Astle Park event I visited a few weeks earlier and missed on some exhibits like the persiod funfair rides – there was still a funfair but it was mostly modern attractions. I doubt I would travel across the country to visit it again (hopefully the more local events will be back next year), but it was good to meet up with some fellow photographers I know via an online photography forum. As we all shoot film cameras, and as a few of us had proposed bringing folding cameras along, an informal competition was devised where we would each attempt to photograph something from the same decade as the camera.

I still had just over half-a-roll of HP5+ in my 1950s era Zeiss Mess-Ikonta, so would use that for the challenge. I also took my Yashicamat 124G on the day. As the Yashicamat if much easier to use than the Zeiss, I endeavoured to use up the partial roll in the folding camera first and completely forgot about the competition. Luckily though, one of the pictures I made was of a bubble-car that, upon later research, turned out to be an Isetta 300 manufactured and first registered in 1959, just squeaking through the competition rules. There’s no prize, and probably not even any judging, so I didn’t have anything to lose, but I’m glad I got something that fit the bill anyway.

50s bubble-car
Fifties made, like my camera
Here to save the day

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 August 2021