In the early months of the First World War, a young Canadian soldier uses quick thinking and ingenuity to evade capture after being wounded fighting in Flanders. While escaping through Germany to the Swiss border, he becomes intimately entwined with...
While Rachel and Maria cleared away the breakfast dishes and tidied the kitchen on Monday morning, Bethia took David to the darkroom to show him around. "I didn't often come in here, but I did have Aaron show me his developing and printing procedures once to satisfy my curiosity."
She switched on the red light and extinguished the bright one before opening a cupboard. "There are five boxes of film here." She picked one up and read the label. "Ten exposures in each, so you've plenty to play with. And here are the boxes of printing paper."
She closed the cupboard and turned on the bright light again. "Here's the camera. Its instructional booklet is here somewhere; he was very organised. Where would his logic have put it?" She pinched her chin as she thought and looked at all the boxes, at the shelf of bottles and at the stack of drawers under the counter, then she pulled open the top drawer. "I thought so. Here it is, and also the manuals for the developing tank and print-making machine."
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David sat at the kitchen table examining the Kodak Folding Pocket Camera as he scanned the manual. He then more slowly read the instructions, trying things as he went along. "Seems rather simple to use." He pushed the button and folded down the front, extending the bellows, and then he adjusted the lens and shutter settings.
He looked up at Bethia. "Interesting, an American camera rather than a German one. We had German cameras in the photography club; a Voigtländer and a Goerz."
"He said he had looked at the German ones, but he chose the Kodak for its simplicity of operation and its compact design."
"From what I see so far, it appears easier to operate than the ones we had in the club. The roll film makes it easier to use than would individual plates. We can expose ten photographs before needing to refresh the camera."
A quarter hour later, Maria came over and stood behind him at the kitchen table as he reread the instructions. She kissed his neck and ran her fingers through his beard. "Have you memorised them yet?"
"Almost. I'm just looking at what it says here about taking portraits. We need a —"
"But we're not taking portraits, in case you've forgotten." She giggled. "We're doing images of body parts. An ankle and a penis."
"Yes, but the camera settings we need are similar. It says for a bust or three-quarter portrait, the subject should be six to eight feet from the camera and for a full-height portrait, eight to ten feet. It also says we need a plain, lightly coloured background, and it's best to have a source of light behind the camera."
"We can drape a sheet as background. What about using the light coming through a window?"
"That would be ideal. Soft, diffused light, rather than harsh. We'll have to experiment a bit with aperture and shutter speed settings to get the exposures correct."
