Okay … lame name for this ‘dressed up’ copy of a Blackbird, Fly camera. It’s quite a relief to finally be able to complete work on it. Took me maybe a month (or was it two?) of painful, careful and frustrating effort but it’s all worth it in the end when I see the final result. Honestly, I am not 100% satisfied with the final result but I think that’s the best I can do. I’ve ‘dressed up’ many Holga cameras and even the most challenging one (Lego Holga) wasn’t this difficult. The Blackbird, Fly has one too many curves and holes (eg. the film counter and also the hole to ‘plug’ the rewind lever into) and being a bit too ambitions, I wanted to work on the ‘flaps’ (sorry I do not know what they are called) on the top of the camera (the one you open up to reveal the viewfinder).
I only had sometimes 10 minutes to 30 minutes on some nights to do it. So I am sure you can imagine my old eyes (and hands) struggling to stay awake, and trying not to slice off my fat thumb in the middle of the night with a pen knife in my hand.
The reason I chose to do the ‘wooden’ design for the Blackbird, Fly was simple. I had some extra material in my drawer after doing the wooden Holga some time ago. I swore not to ever do a same design on a Holga, so I thought ‘why not try doing a ‘wooden’ Blackbird, Fly?’. I imagined how it will look like once completed and now that it’s done, the result is pretty much what I expected. Certain details had to be sacrificed as there wasn’t any way I could do better (okay, I admit I can’t stand working on it any further). I ripped off certain sections and redo them again and again sometimes and almost wanted to tear out the last few strands of hair on my head.
This camera will not be part of my future charity sale because … it ain’t mine. It actually belongs to someone else and it will be flying long distance to another owner soon.
Finally a ‘nightmare’ is over and I shiver at the thought of doing another design on the Blackbird, Fly in the near future. Time to get some rest and then complete the Holga 135BC ‘dressing up’.
Oh … and I did a custom 😛 ‘logo’ for it too! 😀
