Through the View Finder — Donna Hopkins

“To embrace the handmade today is to recognize that beauty doesn’t have to shout. Sometimes, it just needs to show up. Again and again.”

—Handmade in the AI Age (Part III): The Beauty of the Ordinary

*Argus 75 camera, Through the View Finder, August 2025*

I bought an old Argus 75 camera at a local antique mall (the kind with lots of vendors and booths). The camera was $25 and looked like it might be fun to play around with. It takes 620 film which might take a little work. I thought I recalled reading that it would be necessary to buy 120 film and re-spool the film onto a 620 spool which is a little longer and thinner. But I did find, with a some research, that I could actually purchase 620 film from Film Photography Project. I watched a YouTube video from Aly’s Vintage Camera Alley and learned how to clean the camera (and most importantly, put it back together after the clean-up). Looking through the big, bright view finder is a joy and I took a few pictures looking through the viewfinder. I am not sure I’ll invest in film and take a test roll simply because of the expense, but I'm thinking about it.