I love analogue, synths and film cameras.
These photographs were taken using a Pentax Espio 120mi, which I obtained from a charity shop for £1.50 and is an appropriate junkshop camera to take images of a low market, seaside, caravan site infested, blot on the landscape.
I have done my best to make this place look as attractive as I can…
Westward Ho! is a ridiculous, bizarre and unusual name for a seaside shithole
The village name comes from the title of Charles Kingsley’s novel Westward Ho! (1855) which was set in nearby Bideford. The book was a bestseller, and entrepreneurs saw the opportunity to develop tourism in the area. Which explains why a perfectly beautiful piece of coast looks like an inner city crap hole.
More and more people are turning to Charity Shops to buy goods. Other people’s castaways are somebody else’s ‘can use’. Not only can you purchase usable quality clothing, you can get (slightly) out of date technology – there is nothing wrong with something manufactured in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s. Like antiques and fine art, quality is quality.
Design initiatives make this a small and flexible camera – notably the physical size and overall quality of finish make this camera a stylish baby. It houses a good quality zoom lens (38-120mm) with plenty of features that enable a variety of picture taking settings.
The Espio is an autofocus unit with automatic exposure settings and a built in flash unit.
The focus and exposure system on this easy to use camera is an improvement on earlier Pentax compacts, giving sharp results and a decent contrast of tones. One of the most useful applications available on this model is ‘backlight compensation’ setting, which enables you to take a photograph using natural light in the background and flash in the foreground, giving an even tone across the image. Panorama mode is included in this little package which gives a different aspect ratio from most other cameras.