I Had a Dream - The Diana TLR
written by mattcharnock
on March 23rd, 2009
, 34 comments
(20 votes)
I had a dream! (Granted it possibly won’t help as many people as Martin Luther Kings dream, but I do think it is possibly just as epic :P)
Imagine darkness. Somewhere in the distance you here the opening beats of “Also Sprach Zarathusa.” A bright light cracks through the darkness in the distance. Slowly the light seeps into the dark, your gaze in drawn to an obelisk type silhouette. As the light moves over the top it brings into sight a wonder. The light bounces of the light blue plastic top, it shivers down the bumpy black plastic body. A name whispers out from the dark. A name you know. A name you love. Diana.
Like a child frozen with a mix of fear and delight you watch the light as it continues to move round the obelisk, then you see the glory, not one but two plastic lenses, glinting in the light. You reach out and feel the majesty of the camera, its light plastic body with that classic Diana delicate nature, so fragile that you feel if you look at it in the wrong way it will break.
You peer through the waist view finder and see the world – not how it is – but how it should be: deeply vignetted, gloriously nostalgic and subtly out of focus. Your hands prime the shutter, you try to remember all the times I have explained the sunny 16 rule, but it is buried, hiding, just out of reach, too deep in your subconscious. Your thumb gently caresses the trigger release and your ears are greeted with the underwhelming sound of a knife cutting through toast, and you are reassured – that is the sound of a Diana.
You wind the film, the sudden feeling that your fingers are strong enough envelopes you as you struggle to make the camera make the clieckety click noise. Eventually through the little plastic red circle you see the number 2 – and you know you are ready – ready for this brave new world of the Diana TLR. The music reaches full crescendo and then you feel something tickling your toes – my son, having woken up early because he feels poorly and the camera disappears. I go downstairs and watch a film with my son. He goes to sleep. I go to my camera cabinet and look at my Diana.
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