Fashion Victim

 

In order to do a camera-making workshop, it takes me a couple days at least to make the internal parts. In order to reduce that time and get a little more accurate, I wished for a Cricut Explore cutter, which was granted to me. My primary motivation with this camera was to learn the interaction of Inkscape object-oriented graphics software and Cricut Design, which has some design functions but mainly operates the machine. This is not an insignificant learning curve. The first project was the parts of the Compact 30.

Receipts for orders from Chanel used to come in black, opaque envelopes. I've always made the mistake of placing one order for several things and they all come together in only one gift box. So, I have to give that to Sarah all at once (her birthday is in December). This year, since they have free shipping, I made three separate orders, all in individual fancy packaging  - with three of those envelopes. When they arrived, the paperwork was in white envelopes.

One objective was to see how accurately I could place something so it was where I wanted on the front of the camera. That turned out to be easy. There were a few stupid errors. On the back, I left the space for the shutter handle the same as it was on the front, which I patched.

The card is very translucent, but it occurred to me that with the thick black shutters covering the entire front and back, only the sides would have to be opaque. Being visible at the edge of the shutter would mimic the black corners of Chanel's packaging. When I cut the inside of the shutters, it was immediately apparent that there was a flaw in that plan with the empty slots in the channel. You might have noticed on the camera front, there is a light cut mark just where the shutter divides. I forgot to cut the double shutter in half, tried to do it from the back after it was assembled, and didn't quite miss going through the last layer. This illustration is of the shutters of the next camera. The front one I have brilliantly cut in half on the machine.

So the entire inside of the camera was covered with 3M #235 Opaque Photographic Tape - the good stuff.

It didn't work.

It's really odd that the light leak so preferentially covered half the negative and I can't see any obvious candidate. But I'm not going to try to fix it. It will have to be a lovely addition to my cabinet of rejects, and I'll take the lessons with me.

 

I also learned that with Mod Podge and a brush, it's easy to glue two identical copies of something together to thicken them or use two different materials, so everything gets a layer of opaque black paper where there used to be a template from now on.