A 1940's Tailored Dress and a Vintage Ricoh 500 Camera

Dress-Tailor made | Hat-Topshop | Collar-Etsy (similar) | Camera-Vintage | Shoes-Wildpair

Autumn is well upon us here in Christchurch, so a late afternoon stroll through falling leaves and mulberry coloured hydrangeas was in order! It was fun playing around with the camera in the low, bright, autumn light; we were met with bright spotlight sunshine, and dark shadows. This made for some striking contrast in the photos...you can really tell that it was warm in the light and very cold in the caverns of the shadows!

When Andrew went to Vietnam at the end of last year, I sent him away with my measurements and photographs of vintage dresses, to the best tailor he could find in Vietnam...and this is wat he came back with! A mulberry 1940's pattern dress in the most exquisitely feeling fabric. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) I have lost a lot of weight since then and the dress doesn't quite hug my figure as it did, but it's just too pretty not to wear! I really wanted the dress to have a lot of heaviness in the fabric , to make the pleats drape like curtains from my waist. 

I have inherited quite a collection of old vintage film camera's from my dad, this one in particular is a 1957 Ricoh 500, which was one of the first affordable rangefinder camera's on the market. I'm yet to play around a little more with the camera, as it's just so easy to pick up my DSLR and go. However, I'm pushing myself to pick the old camera's up off the shelf and take them out into the world that they probably haven't seen for many years!

Do you have any old film camera's that you've been brave enough to snap away with? What advice can you give to a film camera beginner like me?