Nostalgia

Here's a post that is somewhat nostalgic for me.  Back in 1978, when I was 17 years old, I joined my high school's yearbook staff during the latter half of my junior year as photographer.  They used a huge Polaroid Land Camera and a Konica Autoreflex TC 35mm SLR for their picture-taking needs.  I ended up getting to use both of those cameras, but the one I remember most fondly, was the Konica 35mm.  Here's an image of it in the hands of the guy who was the yearbook photographer just before me, his name was Randy.  This was taken from my junior yearbook:

And here's that same camera in my hands from my senior yearbook.  Both images were cropped:

I learned a lot using that camera and here are some pictures I took using that camera.  The first three were for the yearbook, and the last three were some I took for myself:

I liked that camera so much that I ended up buying one of my own many years later.  When eBay came along and became huge, I realized that you could find practically anything there.  Remembering how much I liked the school's old Konica Autoreflex TC, I searched and found one on eBay - and bought it!  Here's a picture of it:

And a picture taken with it (after I had gotten a lens for it:

It didn't come with a lens, so I got me a second one from eBay that had a lens on it.  The second one didn't work, but was pretty cheap and it had the advantage of having the lens I needed.  That one looked like this:

The first one did work when I first got it, but it jammed up soon after and I haven't had a chance to fix it or use it until recently.  But I did manage to fix the second one I got that didn't work and here's a picture I took with it.  It shows some of the buttons in my late Mother's collection:

At first, however, I now had two of these Konicas and neither one of them worked.  So, I went back to eBay and found a third one that worked, but it, too, didn't have a lens on it.  Not to worry, though, because I had a lens.  Here's what that third one looked like:

And here's a couple pictures taken with that third Autoreflex TC:

Fast forward to 2019.  I was again searching on eBay and found an auction that had nine great old single lens reflex camera bodies, and two of them were Konica Autoreflex TCs!  I ended up getting those cameras and paid less than $10 for both of the Konicas together.  Here's what the first one looks like and a picture taken with it:

And here is the second one, now the fifth total Konica Autoreflex TC cameras in my collection, along with a picture taken just last night with that camera, more buttons in my late Mother's collection:

So, that's the tale, (so far....) of the Konica Autoreflex TC.  Who knows how it will end up?  But every time I use one, I'm transported back in time to when I was teenager and blissfully taking pictures that captured a special memory each time I clicked the shutter button.